Jinchuuriki
by WizardsGirl
Summary: Harry makes a deal with a Shinigami, and is now Mitarashi Midori, the adopted Jinchuuriki brother of Anko. His best friend is Naruto. This is all about his adventure. M for Ninja-ness... R&R ! READ A/N!
1. Julius Caesar

**A/N: **BOW BEFORE MY MIGHTY AWESOMENESS!… (Coughcough) Oh, er, hello there! Well, as you all well know by now, unless you're brand new to Fanfiction, no one here owns _anything_ but originality and plots… and sometimes, they don't even own _that_, those _dirty __**PLAGERISTS!**_

…But I digress.

This is a Harry Potter and Naruto Fanfiction. I own nothing but creative rights to whatever I make these brilliant characters do against their will (and sometimes with consent). I make no money, gain no accolades, and the only recognition I receive for my gift to the world is through you, my beautiful Readers.

I was inspired to work on this instead of tossing it into The PlotBunny Dead Zone, by the Naruto Fanfiction _Better __Left __Unsaid_, whose author is a genius of such a caliber that I bow before his mighty pen. GO **Kenchi618**! After reading such a beautiful peace of work (and promptly leaving a Review asking for more or else I'd Spam the other 32 chapters with the EXACT same Review), I continued on to another of his brilliant pieces, _The __Sealed __Kunai_. I seriously suggest you go read these, even if you are NOT serious Naruto fans. They're fun and awesomely done…

But, _again_, I digress…

What I was _trying_ to get to the point of, though, is that, for this story, I am setting a firm boundary. Usually, I make sure my chapters reach _at __least_ around 3,000 words. This story, though, inspired as it was, is going to be different. Each chapter MUST contain a MINIMUM of 10,000 words or higher, **NOT ****INCLUDING ****THE ****A/N****'****s!**

Now, I hope everyone is doing epically, and if anyone has any prompts for the PBDZ, please send me a message. If it's something I have knowledge of, I'll try to write you up a bit.

_**BE FOREWARNED THOUGH!**_

As I've set such a high standard for this fic, I will be focusing on it, my school work, and actually _finishing_ _The __Sealed __Kunai_. I wil _**NOT**_ be working on other fics for a while, or, if I do, it will be a long time to wait. I'm sorry for those who were eagerly awaiting the next chapters on certain fics (and those who continuously bombard me with PM's on the issue of Updates) but I really HATE it when I lose focus on a story due to my wandering attention span, so I wish to work on this as far as I can, alright?

Thank you for understanding.

Flamers, go fuck your mothers.

PMer's…PLEASE don't send me more "Please Update Soon!" or "When are you going to Update (Insert fic title)?" Mail. I'm getting back-logged (And YES, it's SERIOUSLY getting to that point)

Reviewers… You're all just generally awesome (Even the ones who just say "Neat." And leave it at that)

Readers who Don't Review…I hope you've enjoyed yourselves. I can't tell.

_**R&R!**_

MINIMUM NUMBER OF WORDS :

10,000

NUMBER OF WORDS – A/N:

10,665

**Jinchuuriki**

**Prologue**

_"Cry havoc! And let loose the dogs of war..."- William Shakespeare, Caesar._

**0.0**

Funny how life is always changing. One moment, you understand your place in the world; the next, you're in a whole new ballgame, staring into the Abyss. And the only thing you can comprehend, in that infinitesimal moment as darkness surrounds you and no hope is cradled in your soul?

_Who __the __**fuck **__did __I __manage __to __piss __off __in __another __life?_

…Or maybe that's just me…

My name is Harry James Potter, but that all depends on whom you ask. The Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, the Gryffindor Golden Boy, Dumbledore's Boy, the Light's Champion, He-Who-Defeated-The-Dark-Lord, He-Who-Would-Not-Die. I'm sure there are more, as I've discovered in these last ten years that I am not a person in the eyes of the Wizarding World, _my_ world, but merely an idol. Something you can polish up when you need it to look bright and shiny and brilliant.

Fucking arse-holes.

They made me their perfect weapon, you know. I killed my first man at eleven. I killed a monster, saved a young girl, and freed a mistreated slave at twelve. At thirteen, I fought off a pissed-off werewolf, uncovered a conspiracy, saved an innocent man from a fate worse then death, traveled back in time, and performed a spell nearly four times more advanced than I should have known, and to such a degree that it would have made the hardiest of soldiers gape.

At fourteen I was entered, against my will, into a tournament of which survival was unlikely. I battled a Dragon, swam with Merpeople and water-demons, fought my way through a dangerous maze, solved a Sphinx's riddle, and saved another student, only to be teleported to a graveyard. There, I saw that same student murdered, and my blood was used to bring a megalomaniac, the one who'd murdered my parents, back from the dead. I was tortured, forced to bow to that man, and we dueled. I escaped, with my dead friend's body, only to be betrayed by a professor who I'd thought I could trust, who was really working for the enemy.

At fifteen I was told I was insane. I was abandoned by the world that had, in previous years, catered to my every whim. I had constant nightmares, horrendous headaches, and visions that confused and rattled me on a primal level. I taught a secret organization of students in defense when our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was nothing more then a vicious, disgusting (pink) toad from the Ministry. I was forced (by the pink teacher) to carve _I __Shall __Not __Tell __Lies_ into my own flesh; to write it with my own blood. I was tricked into chasing a prophesy by the megalomaniac from before, and in falling for his trick (shown through visions), I lead the charge to my Godfathers death. I watched him die; I attempted to torture his murderer. I was possessed by a man so foul, that my soul screamed in agony, as his own black soul did, just at his touch.

At sixteen, I was fraught with paranoia about my fellow classmates. Especially one in particular, who turned out to be nothing more then a terrified child, forced into a war he wasn't ready for. I watched my mentor, my Master, a man I loved as a grandfather, die a horrible, humiliating death at the hands of a man he had trusted.

At seventeen, my megalomaniatic enemy hunted me, even as I hunted the fragments of his black soul he'd hidden around England. Friends died, enemies died. Trust was found, shattered, mauled beyond recognition, and healed to near completion. And still, people died. I faced off with my enemy, and died, but rose back up only to kill him. The war was over. I was no longer needed, in that field, at least.

From the age of eighteen to now, I began to train, mercilessly. I became a trained assassin, a nightmare for the remaining Death Eaters, and any who broke the law. I was the Boogey Man, the Monster, the Hunter. I killed hundreds of men and women alike, all dangerous, all murderers or rapists. Never an innocent, never intentionally. But I could not stand in the limelight for the Wizarding World any more. I couldn't uphold their expectations of me.

My duty was done. I was no longer needed by my people, who celebrated and sang my praises and simpered to get into my good graces, where not two years before they would have tossed me into the rubbish heap as nothing more then a worthless scrap. They disgusted me but, when they called upon me again now, at the age of twenty-one, I agreed to help.

I have a saving-people thing, alright?

Sighing, I turned my glowing, Killing-Curse-Green eyes up, peering through my black as pitch hair. The massive Wolf Demon was destroying everything in sight, its purple fur sparking with electricity and malice. It's ten tails lashed, leaving behind nothing but death and destruction. Its three neon-blue eyes were filled with a horrendous glee as it wreaked havoc upon the Wizarding town of Gallows Veil, a small town just outside of Dublin.

"Tell me again how this happened, exactly?" I drawled, tugging my black dragon-hide gloves on as my long-time friend, Neville Longbottom, the recently promoted Minister of Magic (as the previous had ended up getting crushed under the weight of the demon early on in its attack), scowled darkly, his single eye glowering up at the monstrous Wolf.

"Some damned imbecile of a Summoner decided to try his hand at the Forbidden Arts, as is the hobby of most idiots who deem themselves 'all-powerful'," my friend made air-quotes with his fingers, and I hummed in my throat, amused. "He was the first to die, though," Neville added, flashing a surprisingly handsome grin at Luna, his wife of the last three years. She smiled back the same old dreamy not-all-there smile that she used to back in our Hogwarts Days. I smiled.

No one would dare steal the shoes of the Head Auror, like they used to when she was younger. The Seer had grown into a beautiful, merciless fighter, after all. I know for a fact she's immensely deadly.

After all, I'd trained her myself.

"The pup will go to sleep inside a babe," she told me dreamily, smiling a suddenly grim and totally serious smile. I blinked, and frowned. "The babe and pup shall grow together, and the babe shall begin as a man and grow into a different man but never the same, always the same, but different yet not. Like a can of Alphabet soup, you'll never know what you can spell…" She hummed and twisted away, loping gracefully down the hill to her team of specially-trained Aurors and Unspeakables, her platinum blonde hair streaking behind her as they moved in to help the fleeing civilians. I scowled, mind swiftly but carefully unraveling the delightfully twisty talk of my dear friend.

A conclusion rose tentatively from a file in the back of my mind, and I smiled grimly. Neville gave me a sharp look, the black eye-patch making the larger man and plant-enthusiast look slightly more intimidating then he'd ever looked before, especially when you remembered the terrified, shy little boy he'd once been, with his escape-artist toad, Trevor… And his horrible broom-riding skills...

"You've thought of something," he said calmly, bringing me from my nostalgia. I nodded simply, looking up at him, biting back a moment of irritation at his height of six-foot-three, towering over my pathetic five-foot-five. _Stupid__fucking__Dursley's_, I thought with familiar irritation, easily ignored.

"You remember when I went on that mission in Japan?" I asked; he blinked, confused.

"The one where you killed that serial killed, Josiah Flem? The one who chopped up little girls and fed them to his Carnivorous Carnation which he believed was his own, personal God?" I sneered darkly, remembering _that_ pathetic piece of trash. I'd fed him to his precious plant, too…

While he was still screaming.

"Yep, that's the one," I said cheerfully as screams continued to rise while the Wolf Demon trashed the town. "See, I learned this ancient kind of ritual there, from some old hermit who claimed to be a shinobi." At Neville's blank look, I rolled my eyes. "A Ninja, Nev, a _ninja_. Anyways, he taught me these things called Seals. Well, actually, he told me about this, as there are a bunch of different ways to use Seals, but this one was special. It was meant to seal a Demon, like ol' Puppy-Boy down there," I gestured vaguely at the purple Wolf, "well, to seal him into a human body, a vessel. They were called jin-something-or-others, I don't remember, but anyways. In order to do this, someone must bargain with a Shinigami, a Death God, and sacrifice himself or herself in order to seal the Demon. Catch, though, 'cause there's always a bloody, buggering catch." I smiled grimly.

"The vessel must be a newborn baby, umbilical cord freshly cut." Neville sucked in a sharp breath, suddenly pale.

"Harry, you're not going to-" I gave him an insulted look, scowling, and he had the decency to look ashamed for even _thinking_I would do something so cruel.

"I have a plan, though," I told him, as if he hadn't just started to accuse me of infanticide-via-evil-demon. "I might not survive, or, if I do, I won't be around for a long time, alright?" Reluctantly, Neville nodded, and I gave him a small smile and a wink. "Give that gorgeous baby girl of yours a kiss from Uncle Harry, m'kay?" He nodded, and bowed his head, and, smiling, I Apparate'd away, landing on a hill in front of the Demon. It's neon-blue eyes locked on me disinterestedly and he happily continued his pillaging.

I huffed, feeling oddly insulted, and scowled up at him.

"Oi! Puff-ball!" I bellowed in Japanese; those eyes snapped over to me and he paused, said eyes narrowing slowly. I was glad to see that I'd gotten its origin right, though. Definitely from the Hidden Countries. _We_ don't _have_giant-mutant-animal-demons running amok unless we steal them from someone else, thank-you-very-much! "You look like a demented poodle! Your mother was a Chihuahua and your father was a transvestite named Steve!" The demon began growling and stalking towards me, unheeding of the trees crashing in his path as I grinned furiously, heart pounding and magic curling around me in eager anticipation.

"You have a small brain and a smaller dick!" I yowled up at him, cackling as he snarled, looming over me, his ten tails stiff and arched in a dominants pose, fury making electricity sparkle dazzlingly around his massive form. His power beat down on me, crackling like static against my skin and magic, and made my tongue tingle like I'd just eaten a mouthful of Pop-Rocks or something… It was kind of neat, actually!

"**DO ****YOU ****HAVE ****A ****DEATH ****WISH, ****MORTAL?****"** he roared; I winced and made a point of wriggling a finger into my ear.

"Aw, don't get your tails in a knot, Fluff-the-Magic-Dumbass," I called, snorting in amusement. "I gotta have a word with you, and you're being a bloody pillock, so I had to get your attention _some_ way." The Wolf snarled, eyes narrowing into vicious slits as I grinned impishly.

I do believe insanity runs in my family, in case you were wondering… I blame the schools… Or maybe it was the death-threats growing up…

Naw. Definitely the schools.

"**What ****is ****it ****you ****want, ****human?****"** Mr. Mac-Poofy-Fur growled lowly, body trembling in rage. I was rather impressed; he was holding his temper very well for a Demon!

"Oh, I just wondered…" I turned, and lifted my right hand, fingers curving slightly, acid-green magic, visible for once, curling ominously around my limb. "If you knew a dear friend of mine." He frowned, suddenly confused and, my smile turning grim, I racked my fingers down. With a loud tearing sound, like wet cloth, a rift appeared next to me, widening until it towered over me, seven feet tall.

Immediately, a black form appeared in the whirling gray on the other side of the rift, and stepped out onto the land, the grass touching its sandaled feet dying and withering to blackened husks. Black, Japanese-style clothes swirled around its seven-foot-tall frame in a way that reminded me vaguely of Snape's bat-like robe-affect. White flowers edged its black robe, the inside a blood-colored red that looked like crushed velvet. A curved, hand-held sickle flashed in its hand, the blade gleaming purple and red in the light, radiating an ominous miasma of bloodlust. No skin showed anywhere, and its face was covered in a black mask with red designs, the face of a twisted, howling agony staring emotionlessly down at me as I bounced on my feet with my extra energy, fidgeting impatiently.

"_**I **__**wondered **__**when **__**you**__**'**__**d **__**call **__**upon **__**me, **__**Chibi,**__**"**_ a voice whispered, too loud and yet too quiet from beneath that mask. It had no masculinity or femininity in it. Only a harsh, whispering emptiness, filled with screams and horror and sighs of peace. I paused in my bouncing, and blinked.

"…Was that a jab at my short stature, Shinigami-sama?" I asked, cocking my head to the side, then shrugged, smiling. "Anywho, Shinigami-sama, meet Sir Fluffy-Poodle. Poodle-Puff, meet Shinigami-sama," I grinned darkly. "We're old buddies, yes?" The Death God tilted his head slightly to me, and turned to eye the Wolf Demon, who had started to back away but froze, paralyzed, in the Shinigami's stare.

"_**What **__**is **__**it **__**you **__**want **__**of **__**me, **__**Chibi?**__**"**_ Shinigami-sama finally whispered; I stilled, bowing my head, and turned swiftly, dropping to one knee.

"Shinigami-sama," I intoned seriously, eyes lifting to lock onto the side of his head, his gaze still focused on the Wolf Demon. "I, Harry James Potter, Holder of the Hallows, the so-called Shinigami-Chibi" I didn't twitch at that, you know! "Do hereby ask to become the Jinchuuriki of the Ten-Tailed Wolf Demon, Juu no Ookami. As a sacrifice, I give up my life as a Wizard, and surrender to the whims of Lady Fate and yourself, to decide where I shall reside thereof." I bowed my head and stared intently at my knee, holding my breath in the hopes it would be enough.

"…_**Done,**__**"**_ Shinigami-sama intoned after only a small pause. His hand shot forward, sickle pointed at the demon, and a low, reverberating sound, like a gong, rolled through the air. Juu, AKA Puffy-Mac-Flufferton (and yes, I'm having fun mixing his names around) howled, an agonized, terrified sound, and began to glow a bright blue, the color of his eyes. As the glow intensified, he began to shrink, and shrink, and shrink, until all that was left was a glowing blue sphere, no bigger then an apple. It floated swiftly up the hill and into Shinigami-sama's free hand, and the Death God turned to stare at my kneeling form, head tilted slowly to the side.

"_**I **__**have **__**some **__**conditions **__**of **__**my **__**own, **__**Chibi,**__**" **_he said in his slow, painful-sounding way. I bowed my head lower and waited, lips thin. _**"Your **__**magic **__**shall **__**remain **__**with **__**you, **__**though **__**you **__**shall **__**have **__**to **__**learn **__**to **__**use **__**your **__**Chakra **__**as **__**well, **__**where **__**you**__**'**__**ll **__**be **__**going. **__**I **__**understand **__**some **__**pitiful **__**Ningen **__**near **__**my **__**realm **__**has **__**taught **__**you **__**some **__**basics, **__**yes?**__**"**_ I nodded carefully.

"Hai, Shinigami-sama." He nodded as well.

"_**Another **__**condition,**__**"**_ he whispered/screamed with his disturbing voice. _**"**__**This **__**demon**__**'**__**s **__**soul **__**will **__**be **__**irrevocably **__**tied **__**to **__**your **__**own. **__**You **__**shall **__**live **__**as **__**long **__**as **__**he **__**could, **__**un-aging **__**past, **__**say, **__**twenty-five. **__**The **__**only **__**way **__**you **__**shall **__**ever **__**enter **__**my **__**realm, **__**Chibi, **__**is **__**if **_**I**___**decide **__**that **__**you **__**are **__**no **__**longer **__**needed **__**as **__**my **__**servant **__**in **__**this **__**realm. **__**And, **__**when **__**you **__**are **__**finally **__**allowed **__**to **__**leave **__**this **__**pathetic **__**place, **__**your **__**soul, **__**and **__**now **__**this **__**demons, **__**will **__**forever **__**be **__**in **__**my **__**service. **__**You **__**will **__**find **__**no **__**peaceful **__**place **__**where **__**your **__**family **__**lies **__**awaiting **__**you. **__**You **__**will **__**become, **__**instead, **__**one **__**of **__**my **__**kind. **__**A **__**Shinigami.**__**"**_ His attention was an agony of a special kind, his words another, as his depthless eyes locked on my suddenly shivering form. _**"**__**Do **__**you **__**understand, **__**Chibi?**__**"**_ I swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, and stared blankly at my hands. An eternity, tied forever to a demon that probably hated my very existence at this moment. I would never get to rest with my parents, or Sirius, or Remus, or _anybody_ I came to love and cherish…

But is that not a better price then more innocents dying through some idiot's folly?

"I accept, Shinigami-sama," I said quietly, closing my eyes. I felt one of his hands land on my head, caressing, and withheld a shudder at the near Dementor-like feeling it gave me, clammy and cold and lacking all small signals of life.

"_**Very **__**good, **__**Chibi,**__**"**_ he said in his disturbing way. _**"**__**I **__**must **__**de-age **__**you, **__**little **__**one, **__**and **__**transfer **__**your **__**new**__**…**__**friend**__**…**__**into **__**your **__**body. **__**Changes **__**will **__**occur, **__**but **__**your **__**memories **__**will **__**remain **__**in tact.**__**It **__**will **__**be **__**painful.**__**"**_ That was all the warning I got, when the hand in my hair pressed lightly, and sudden, abrupt agony, worse then any Crucio, wrenched through my very _soul_. I screamed until my throat was raw and no more sound came out, and then I screamed in silence, unable to even black out as my body shifted and molded, like clay.

It seemed like hours before the pain stopped, as abruptly as it began, but it was more likely just a couple of minutes. I whimpered, shuddering, and slowly, weakly, blinked my eyes open… Everything looks freaking _huge_ when you're tiny, did you know that? And babies see in black-and-white! No color, at all, anywhere! Blinking, I watched as the utterly massive form of Shinigami-sama knelt and scooped my tiny form up.

"_**Here **__**is **__**your **__**wish, **__**Chibi,**__**"**_ the Death God said, and I whimpered again as his strange voice hurt my ears. He held up his other hand, in which the now white/pale gray-looking ball that was Juu-the-Demented-Poodle. Carefully, he pressed it against my chest, and I jerked, small body spasming viciously as strange, tingly feelings rolled through me. I gurgled, then looked down as best as I could (babies, ESPECIALLY newborns, have _very_ little control over their muscles…). Black swirls, like flames, curled in a strange pattern on my chest, just above my heart, and ten Japanese symbols shown through in seemingly random intervals.

"_**Done,**__**"**_ Shinigami-Sama whispered, and turned with me cradled to his chest, and stepped into the gray of the Rift. _**"**__**This **__**will **__**feel **__**strange.**__**"**_ And let me tell you, he wasn't fucking kidding. It felt like I'd just been dunked into freaking _Jello_ or something! All slimy and thick and cool-but-not-cold, with a strange fruity taste… And then, with that wet-cloth-tearing sound, we were back in the real world, and, had I _not_ been a newborn _baby_, I probably would have sighed with relief or something.

**0.1**

"_**This **__**is **__**the **__**outskirts **__**of **__**the **__**shinobi **__**Hidden **__**Village **__**of **__**Konohagakure,**__**"**_ Shinigami-sama told me as sunlight warmed my bare skin. _Oh __great. __I__'__m __naked__… __Did __not __notice __that __before__… __**"**__**It **__**is **__**also **__**called **__**Konoha. **__**The **__**Village **__**Hidden **__**in **__**the **__**Leaves. **__**I **__**have **__**twisted **__**things **__**a **__**bit, **__**with **__**Fate-sama**__**'**__**s **__**approval **__**and **__**assistance, **__**to **__**make **__**your **__**future **__**stay **__**here **__**slightly **__**more **__**welcoming **__**then **__**it **__**otherwise **__**would **__**have **__**been, **__**Chibi.**__**"**_ He looked down at me with his mask, and I struggled not to yawn, feeling strangely comfortable in the crook of his too-big arm. _**"**__**Here **__**you **__**shall **__**find **__**a **__**woman **__**who **__**shall **__**be **__**a **__**blood-relative. **__**There **__**is **__**also **__**another **__**Jinchuuriki **__**here, **__**only **__**a **__**few **__**years **__**older **__**then **__**you **__**yourself, **__**now. **__**He **__**shall **__**be **__**an **__**interesting **__**companion **__**for **__**you **__**later, **__**I **__**believe.**__**"**_ Carefully, Shinigami-sama laid me on a thick patch of unkilled grass near his feet, and then pulled a black leather cord holding a small black symbol on it from inside his…well, I want to say uniform, so let's just go with that. I recognized the symbol well, as it _was_the sign for the Deathly Hallows. The triangle with a circle in it, vertically bisected by a line…

Hey! For a second there, I sounded kind of like Hermione…

"_**If **__**you **__**should **__**require **__**my **__**assistance, **__**you **__**may **__**call **__**upon **__**me, **__**Chibi,**__**"**_ he said calmly. _**"**__**Here, **__**my **__**name **__**is **__**Jashin, **__**and **__**I **__**am **__**Lord **__**of **__**Slaughter, **__**and **__**a **__**God **__**of **__**Death. **__**Remember **__**that, **__**and **__**beware, **__**for **__**my **__**disciples **__**are **__**sometimes **__**overzealous **__**when **__**seeking **__**to **__**please **__**me.**__**"**_ Shinigami-sama, now known as Jashin-sama, straightened and stepped back into the rift. _**"**__**I **__**shall **__**be **__**watching, **__**Chibi**__**…"**_ and with that, rather disturbingly stalkerish, bit of warning, he disappeared. And I wondered: what do Shinigami _really_ do in their free time, if fucking with my life is such entertainment? I mean, I'm a freaking _baby_, an immortal _baby_ he left outside a _ninja_ village, alone, and defenseless…

I lay silently for a few minutes, thinking about that, before thinking '_what __the __hell__'_ and taking a deep breath before wailing my displeasure up to the sky. Now, don't get me wrong, I adore babies, but sometimes the most annoying sound in the world is listening to them cry. It was just _bound_ to get me attention fast, and it did, in the form of two black-clad people seemingly freaking _appearing_ out of a couple of leaves, wearing animal masks that I couldn't quite understand in my infantile state.

"It's a baby…" One said slowly, in a deep male voice. The other nodded, and I continued wailing, wondering when in Merlin's name one of them would just bloody well _pick__me__up_! They moved cautiously towards me, scouted around for a moment, and then the one who'd yet to speak (who's mask I now saw was that of a bear) carefully picked me up in his (he felt like a him, unless there were female-versions of Crabbe and Goyle here… #Shudders#) large hands and cradled me to his chest.

"Lets' take him to the Hokage," the more talkative male said; Bear nodded, and in a swirl of leaves and a strange tingly feeling, we were off! I hiccupped, and warbled and whined like the baby I was, and I wondered when I'd see in color again… Unless it wasn't because I was a baby, but because of Fuzzbutt. Oh, I would be _sooooo_ pissed if that damned Wolf Demon made me color-blind!

"Hokage-sama," the masked men said in unison, before kneeling. I sniffled, and wished my infant-self had some proper mobility, so that I could see the one they were talking about. From my time spent in Japan with the supposed Shinobi, I knew that a Hokage was basically an "Epic Ninja" as I called them, and I _really_ wanted to see one.

"What can I do for you two?" an old mans voice asked calmly; Bear straightened and stepped forward, shifted me, and set me on what felt like a desk.

"We found this infant abandoned outside the perimeters of Konoha, sir," the more talkative of the two said respectfully. "We brought him straight here once we made sure he was not a part of some trap or bait." I blinked up at the old man who peered down at me with serious eyes, and the only thing I could think?

_Holy, fucking hell, I want that hat!_

"Send for a medic-nin," he ordered my 'rescuers simply, picking me up gently in warm, strong hands.

"Hai, Hokage-sama," my rescuers said, and once more disappeared in a swirl of leaves. The old man sat in his chair, chewing on the stem of his pipe and staring down at me, while I yawned and blinked tiredly up at him.

"Spiky purple hair," he murmured, "pupiless eyes. If they were brown instead of green, I'd have sworn you were a male Mitarashi Anko…" I stared up at him blankly, confused. _What __the __fuck __does __he __mean, __purple __hair __and __no __pupils?_

"Hokage-sama, you called for a medic-nin?" a man entered the room and paused as the Hokage gestured to me.

"Two of my ANBU found him abandoned in the forest, and I want you to give him a check-up, as well as a blood-test," he ordered; the man nodded immediately, stepped forward, and lifted glowing hands to run over my body. I wiggled, whimpering, as his hands and Chakra passed over my chest, making Juu's Seal flare up. I whimpered, and began to cry, at the two men's sharp breaths, their bodies tensing.

"A Jinchuuriki…?" The medic-nin breathed, staring down at the mark; the Hokage stared grimly as well, and I quieted, sniffling.

"Continue the exam," he said calmly, eyes sharp on the medic-nin, "and I trust you'll speak not a word of this to anyone, Nekotayu-san?" he said, with emphasis. The medic-nin, Nekotayu, grimaced, but nodded solemnly.

"Hai, Hokage-sama," he said quietly, and finished the diagnostic. After that, he pulled an empty syringe from his pocket, and swiftly drew blood from my arm, making me yowl, before he healed the mark and left, saying he'd be back in an hour or two at most with the results. The Hokage called in his secretary, who cooed at me, scooped me up, and carried me out of the room to her little office area, where she found some baby materials waiting on her desk, where and ANBU must have left them… (If I remember right from my chats with my supposed-Shinobi-friend, ANBU were, like, the 'Me' of the ninja-world, right? The assassins and snakes-in-the-grass?) She quickly wrapped me in a diaper and blanket, and popped a bottle in my mouth. I fell asleep suckling on it.

**0.2**

I found myself locked inside my mindscape (which I'd made up into a replica of the Forbidden Forest a few years back under the training of a Mind-Healer, who helped me heal the damage Snape's _horrid_ training had done…if you could actually call it _training_ instead of _torture_…), more specifically, I was in a clearing, lying as an infant next to a massive cage that held the purple-form of Juu.

"**Disgusting ****little ****brat!****"** the demon snarled at me furiously, blue eyes bright with malice. **"****You****'****ve ****doomed ****us **_**both**_**, ****and ****now ****that ****Shinigami****'****s ****collar ****chokes ****me.****"** I yawned at him and blinked.

'_And __I __should __care __because__…__?__'_ I thought at him; he snarled. _'__Look, __you __can __bitch, __bark, __and __complain __all __you __want, __Fluffy. __It __won__'__t __stop __the __fact __that, __even __if __I __fully __released __you, __I __wouldn__'__t __die, __and __you __wouldn__'__t __be __allowed __outside __my __body __without __my __consent. __You__'__re __as __weak __as __a __kitten __as __long __as __I __want __you __that __way, __so __I __suggest __you __not __piss __me __off, __and __that __you __wait __a __few __years __until __I __get __the __hang __of __this __new __body __before __I __let __you __roam __around __my __forest, __alright?__' _Juu snarled, turned his back, and curled all ten of his tails around him tightly. _'__Good __doggy,__'_ I thought snidely, and faded from the Forbidden Forest to leave him to his sulking in peace.

**0.3**

I woke again in my infant-body, lying on a small, padded pallet behind the Hokage's desk while he worked on a humongous mound of paperwork. If I could, I would have winced in sympathy. I _loathed_ paperwork with a passion. I heard a door open, and the Hokage looked up, nodding, before glancing down at me. I yawned and blinked up at him curiously, so he reached down and picked me up, so that I could see that his visitor was that Nekotayu fellow from before, holding a scroll. _Has __it __really __been __an __hour __or __two?_ I wondered, snuggling as much as I can into the tobacco-scented robes of the Hokage.

"What were his results?" the old man asked; Nekotayu-san opened the scroll and showed him.

"He's is, actually, related to Mitarashi-san through blood in some way, Hokage-sama," he told the man simply, honestly. "A cousin of some sort, according to this. He has some sort of Kekkai Genkai from what looks like his fathers side, the side _not_ related to Mitarashi-san, and another anomaly in his blood that I'm willing to bet is a result from his…er…circumstances," he finished a little lamely, darting his eyes pointedly towards my unmarked chest. The Hokage nodded in understanding, looking thoughtful, and, after otherwise declaring me healthy, dismissed Nekotayu. He paused, then made a small signal.

Instantly, and ANBU appeared, kneeling, next to his desk, head bowed, awaiting his orders.

"Go and get Mitarashi Anko and bring her here immediately," he ordered calmly; the ANBU nodded, and leaf-swirled away, just like the others had. _I __sooo __have __to __learn __how __to __do __that,_ I thought as I was given a binky to suckle on, which I idly did.

The girl who entered the room next couldn't have been more then fifteen, and wore a fishnet suit with a mini-skirt and an overcoat. Her hair was spiky and done up in a ponytail so that the spikes were up behind her head, and her eyes had no pupils.

"You called, Hokage-sama?" she asked, sounding torn between irritated and curious. The Hokage shifted me and stood, moving around the desk.

"Anko-san," he said gravely, calmly, "ANBU found you're cousin here outside of Konoha abandoned. As his only relative, I believe it would be only best if you were to take care of him yourself, with some extra money and help to assist you." The girl stared at me, shocked, and I couldn't blame her. Seriously, who pulls this kind of shit on a teenager? 'We found this random baby in the woods who happens to have some alleles in common with you, so here you go, its you problem no, have fun!'

What the fuck!

"There's something you should know, though," the Hokage continued grimly, keeping a firm hold on me when Anko hesitantly reached for me with fingers that trembled ever-so-slightly. She looked up at him, frowning, and those eyes flashed with a warning light I'd come to know quite well from being well acquainted with dangerous and homicidal females…_especially_ around THAT time of the month, when there's no chocolate.

"Well?" She demanded. "What's is it? What's wrong with my otouto?" She snapped, sounding worried, and I was rather touched that this girl already considered me her little brother. The Hokage met her eyes solemnly.

"He's a Jinchuuriki," he said simply; I watched her pale skin get paler, something my monochromic-sight could actually see, and then watched her lips thin and those pupiless eyes harden.

"Who gives a fuck?" She snapped. "He's my otouto, and that's all that matters!" She gently snatched me from the Hokage's arms and cuddled me against her already ample chest, and nuzzled my head, making me coo at her. "My little otouto… Midori. That's your name now." She smiled and stroked my cheek with her fingers, before looking up at the Hokage, face grim. "I may only have been here for a year, Hokage-sama, after what Orochimaru-sensei did to me, but you have given me more then I could ever have asked for in a hundred years of service with that snake-faced-teme. Arigato, Hokage-sama," she said solemnly, and bowed, holding me close, before she leaped out the window, clutching me close.

**0.4**

'_What __the __fuck __is __the __MATTER __WITH __YOU __NINJAS?__'_ I mentally screamed as we fell several feet, before Anko flared her Chakra and sent as zooming towards the next buildings roof. _'__Who __the __fuck __jumps __out __of __buildings __with __BABIES?__'_ Juu was laughing his ass off inside my head, so I mentally threw rocks at him and muted his area so I wouldn't hear him, and prayed to Jashin-sama that my insane-cackling-Neesan (older sister) wouldn't _drop __me_.

"Let's go home, Midori-chan!" Anko cried; and I wailed my displeasure up at her as we made our way at top speed toward what must have been her apartment, shrieking in my head about insane bitches with fishnet-fetishes.

That was two years ago.

**0.5**

"Midori-chan, you can't eat a kunai!" Anko exclaimed, gently pulling the weapon from my grip as I sat on the floor gnawing on it, watching her get ready. I have to say, the insane kunoichi was a pretty responsible person for a now-seven-teen-year-old. She made sure I never ate/did anything that could get me hurt, and that _she_ never ate/did anything that could get me hurt. Today was her first day as a Jounin, though, working for Konoha's Torture and Interrogation squad under on Morino Ibiki.

She was actually rather excited, and would have been more so, if she wasn't panicking over the fact that my sometimes-babysitters is on a B-Rank mission out of the country right now, and so she has to take me with her.

"Damn it!" She cursed, again, as she stubbed her toe and nearly tripped stepping on my mangled purple cow, _Bo-boo._ I scowled up at her, picked up a nearby senbon, and flung it on her, tearing her jacket shoulder as she dodged it.

"No step on Bo-boo, Neesan!" I scolded her clearly; she grinned, scooped me and the horribly stitched cow up, and headed out, ignoring my wordless babbles as I pretended to have a conversation with Bo-boo over the idiocies of older-siblings while she jumped from roof to roof. Fifteen minutes later, we were at the building. Ten minutes after that, we were in the right corridor. Five minutes after that, I managed to sneak away and hide under some random desk in some office, with Bo-boo at my side and a Kunai in my mouth, snuggled in the corner and gleefully hiding out while my sister tore the place up trying top find me.

"What the hell?" A deep voice asked; I peered up at the man who had just stepped behind the desk, and was now staring down at me, hands on his hips, scowling. His face was all scarred and he looked rather intimidating… Or, he would have, If I hadn't faced worse things when I was an assassin and a bit of a psychopath. I shushed him, and pointed my kunai at him.

"My Neesan will eat my liver if she finds me," I told him, words a little slurred but still legible (damn toddler-mouth…). "Me an' Bo-boo is hidin', an' you're gonna let us, or I'll cut off your boy-parts and make that pose suit you, 'kay?" I grinned, nuzzled my Bo-boo, and stuck the kunai back in my mouth happily while an amused look crossed the mans face.

"How old are you, gaki?" he asked bluntly; I spat out the kunai, a trail of drool connecting it from my mouth.

"I'm two an' a half! M'name's Midori-chan!" I declared with childish pride, despite the fact that my name was more feminine then masculine.

"Midori, huh," the man said, amused. "Well, my name is Morino Ibiki, and you're hiding in my office." I eyed him, making my face wide-eyed and as chibified as I could…not a very hard thing to do, all things considering.

"Ibiki-oniisama!" I cried, scrabbling up into his lap as he sat in a nearby chair on wheels. "You're my Neesan's Boss!" He smirked slightly, amused.

"You use a lot of big words for a two-year-old, Midori-chan," Ibiki told me, picking me up and setting me on his desk. I immediately began to kick my feet, beaming at him as I gnawed on the point of the kunai.

"Neesan says my brains too big," I told him idly, rolling my tongue nimbly so that I wouldn't cut it on the weapon at all. Ibiki hummed and, after a few minutes of us staring at one another, there was a rushed knock at the door.

"Enter," he called; I turned as it opened to allow a furious, flustered, and worried-looking Anko in, and grinned, waving.

"Hi, Neesan!" I chirruped happily. "Ibiki-oniisama and me was talking 'bout me!" A vein throbbed in Anko's forehead as she bowed her head and gritted her teeth.

"Do you," she growled, "have _any __idea_ how _worried_ I've been?" She snarled; I blinked, cocked my head to the side, and eyed her.

"Um," I said. "Lots?" I tried, inwardly grinning. She grimaced and dragged her fingers through her head as I held up Bo-boo. "Bo-boo watched me! And I can remove boy-parts with my kunai, too!" I announced, spitting out the kunai and holding the drool-shiny weapon up, giggling loudly when Ibiki picked me up and stood. _Damn_but he was tall! He handed me over with a stern, vaguely amused look, and Anko gripped me firmly, but not painfully, making me snuggle into her and smile happily up into her face.

"I suggest you keep an eye on this one, Mitarashi," he told her bluntly, eyes amused but serious. "He's a troublemaker." I stuck my tongue out, like any child would, and pointed at him with the kunai.

"_You__'__re_ a troublemaker, Ibiki-oniisama!" I announced, then turned my head and licked Anko's cheek. "You taste like salt!" I declared, before laying my head on her shoulder with a yawn. "Let's nap!" Anko sweat-dropped, rolled her eyes, and carried me out of the room towards her appointed desk.

That was three years ago.

**0.6**

"Midori, you are to _stay __here_," Anko said serious (I could tell, because she hadn't put that _–__chan_ on the end of my name like she usually did). The shouts of angry/alarmed shinobi from outside the office were clear, and the twenty-year-old kunoichi looked thin-lipped with anger and excitement mixed. One of the captives, a traitor Leaf-nin named Yanatoyu Keitaro, had somehow managed to escape using a summons he'd snuck in _within_ his body, and was now running loose. Everyone had to go and look, but I, as my five-year-old-self, had to 'stay put'.

'**We ****could ****always ****play ****solitaire,****'** Juu offered, snickering at my misfortune, and I ignored him like usual.

"Hai, Neesan, I'll stay here," I told her simply, and pointed to under her desk, where I had a small pallet hidden with some toys and a small desk of my own so I could practice my writing (which sucked major monkey-dick, considering Japanese wasn't my first language and my _English_ handwriting looked like shit, too…). Anko stared at me, then smiled softly, kissed my forehead, ruffled my short, messy purple spikes, and shunshin'd out. That was that 'disappear so damn fast you're hardly even there' thing shinobi seem so damn fond of here. I can't wait to learn it…

Hiding under the desk and practicing my calligraphy isn't normally my style, but I was trained to be practical, and it is _not_ practical to send an operative who is totally outclassed after a target. Ergo, no five-year-olds after ninjas. It just doesn't mix well. So I hid obediently under the desk, and worked on my kanji, while my sister and her comrades went in search of the traitor…

That's not to say I was totally unprotected, though, because I had thirty senbon needles in the pockets of my large shorts, fifteen in each pocket. I could work with them a lot better then I could the larger and heavier kunai, though I had one of those too. So, you see, I was prepared to defend myself. I was just rather hoping I wouldn't have to.

Damn Potter Luck.

When the door opened, I pretended I didn't notice it, though I tightened my muscles and made myself quieter. When the door closed again, it brought with it the scent of an unknown ninja, a male, and one that smelled faintly of blood. That raised my hackles, and I carefully pulled five senbon from my pocket. When he moved to stand in front of the desk, and started opening one of Anko-neesan's drawers, I showed him _exactly_ why that was a bad idea, by impaling his feet, wrists, and right elbow with senbon, making him give a startled shout and fall on his ass. Immediately, five more senbon were in my hand and flying, to hit his other elbow, both knees, and both shoulders, and then five more, to hit his hands, ankles, and one to hit the non-lethal spot on the groin, which would cause a full-body agony. He writhed, choking in pain, and I silently returned to my writing as, minutes later, the door burst open as Anko and four of her comrades leaped into the room.

"Kami, Anko," one blurted. "What kind of defense do you _put_ on your drawers?" Anko shook her head, walked around the twitching and moaning shinobi on the ground, and knelt in front of me, grinning.

"Midori-chan," she sing-songed, grinning. "Did you put someone in time-out?" I blinked up at her solemnly, and pointed a senbon at the fallen ninja.

"He tried to get in you're drawers," I told her seriously. "Bad boy." I nodded, and then smiled and held up a picture of stick people that represented her and me with red surrounding us. "Lookit, Neesan! Pretty picture!" She laughed, scooped me and my senbons up, and left the pale and staring comrades in her office, carrying me out of the room.

"Lets go get you some chocolate and me some dango, alright, otouto?" she said; I cheered loudly, excited. Chocolate is the fucking _bomb_. Ibiki, watching us from the shadows, smirked, and then ran off to probably go talk to the Hokage.

I got all my senbons back, clean and shiny, later, with a book on pressure points and vital points of the body, which Anko is reading to me right now.

**0.7**

"It's him," one of the villagers hissed, glaring spitefully at a little boy with yellow-blond hair.

"Demon brat," another muttered hatefully.

"Abomination," another spat.

I looked at the boy, who looked about eight-years-old to my five, who squinted his blue eyes shut against the hate and malice, and grinned at the villagers as if their words didn't hurt him, and I walked over and took his hand. He stared down at me, blue eyes snapping wide, and I grinned.

"Hiya," I said warmly. "You wanna eat lunch with me and my Neesan?" I asked; and when on of the villagers moved to 'rescue' me, he found himself with a senbon in the fatty tissue between his thumb and finger, crying out in pain as I never looked away from the other Jinchuuriki's eyes. He smiled and gripped my hand tighter, and I was pleased to note that this smile was real.

"Hai," he said happily, and we headed for a ramen place he knew, Anko meeting us halfway there, but not minding the extra mouth she seemingly was volunteered to feed.

'**Softie,****'** Juu grumbled; I mentally smacked him with a giant plushy, and shut him up.

**0.8**

"Everyone, this is Mitarashi Midori, he's a new student," the sensei was saying; I ignored him, met Naruto-nii's eyes, and gave him a thumbs up.

"But he's two years younger then us, Takuyu-sensei!" a random girl shouted; I ignored her, ran up the aisle, and plopped down into the vacant seat next to my best friend, who grinned and grabbed my hand, smiling happily at me.

"Mitarashi-kun was moved into this class because he's more advanced then his own class, so he'll be working with us from now on," the sensei continued. "Now, on with today's lesson…" The entire time, Naruto-nii and I never let go of one another, mostly because he was afraid I might move away from him and abandon him if he did. After a month, he finally figured out I was there to stay.

**0.9**

"Uzumaki, you _fail_," Takuyu-sensei said, smirking with some satisfaction as Naruto was laughed at. I gritted my teeth, and touched his shoulder briefly when he passed, as I was called up for my turn. We were doing _Bunshin_, Clones, which were Naruto's worse technique. And one of my best. Coolly, I stood before the proctors of the test…

And failed it on purpose.

Twice.

"I just don't understand," Takuyu-sensei was saying, sounding nervous, as I walked back to my seat. "He does it just fine in class!" The proctor scribbled something down and sighed.

"Maybe it's just performance anxiety," he suggested gently. "You know, nerves and such." Only three of the twenty-eight students pass. Naruto and I are switched from his class together, into a class with a teacher named Fai-sensei. She smells like too-much perfume and a cup of sake before class each day. When Naruto fails her test, too, two years later, I fail it as well. Finally, we're moved again, to Iruka-sensei.

He's the best so far, and Naruto refuses to take his test until I take mine, and I can't fail because he might pass this time, so I pass, and am heartbroken for him when he doesn't. Mizuki, the proctor, tries to let him pass, and I'm grateful, but Iruka-sensei has a point. I'm the only one who sits with Naruto afterwards, and I don't wear my new headband until he leaves, and Anko insists that I put it on for her.

"Now you look like a proper shinobi," she announced, fiddling with my spiky purple hair until some falls on either side of the Leaf-insignia. "Let's go and gets some chocolate, eh?" I smile, but…

"Nah," I said, shaking my head with a stretch. "I'm going to go find Naruto-nii and see if I can cheer him up, 'cause we both know those tests are rigged against him passing," I informed her, sticking a senbon in my mouth and smiling slyly at her. "Now you can go and have a mouth-orgasm with your dango, though, Neesan," I teased, and leaped away from the kunai she threw, laughing, and left to find Naruto again. Maybe I'd treat him to ramen…

**1.0**

'_I __can__'__t __believe __the __dumbass __managed __to __steal __some __uber-secret __scroll, __and __didn__'__t __even __come __and __tell __me!__' _I ranted in my head, running through the trees, following Naruto's scent. I erupted from the branches and skidded through the dirt silently, crossing my arms over my chest as I glared at the tired-looking twelve-year-old. He laughed sheepishly, and held it out uncertainly.

"Heh, heh, heh… Wanna see?" I huffed, hopped over, and copped a squat next to him, pupiless-green eyes immediately skipping over the _Kage __Bunshin_ (Shadow Clone) technique, which, Naruto explained, he was already working on. I didn't want something _he_could do, after all…

Huh. _Kage __Ookami_ (Shadow Wolf), eh… Grinning, I got to work on that once I'd read through the description. A strange technique that could create shadow-wolves that could be used like shadow clones, huh? Sounded fitting, after all.

**1.1**

"Heh, I guess I got carried away…" Naruto said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. I grinned from where I was concentrating my Chakra to start healing Iruka-sensei, who was smiling slightly at Naruto.

"Naruto, come here," he ordered, smiling. "I've got a present for you." As I watched Naruto close his eyes, then tackle our injured sensei when he opened them to find he's been allowed to graduate, I grinned right along with him.

This was _so_ worth the ass-beating Anko was going to give me later, you could believe it!

**1.2**

"Here's some money," Anko said, handing me a heavy pouch the next day, smirking as I winced, muscles protesting from the workout she'd given me as punishment for running out with Naruto and taking on a traitor like we did. "Buy your shinobi gear and weapons, and _no __chocolate_, Midori, do you understand me?" I pouted. _'__Damn, __she __took __off __the _–chan, _and __that __means __she__'__s __serious__…__Bitch.__'_

"Hai, Neesan," I sighed, sulking, before I leaped down from the roof and headed straight for the shinobi weapons-and-accessories shop. I was tempted to get a one-piece like Gai and his little mini-me just to fuck with her head, but then they might start following me or something, and I did _not_ feel like brain-bleach every morning, thank-you-very-much! Walking through the store, I picked up more then enough senbons, a handful of kunai, a _lot_ of bandages, a medic-kit, the standard weapons belt (in purple &Whoot!&), black knee-length shorts that were wide at the legs and with huge pockets, a brown short-sleeves have shirt (it ended about four inches above my bellybutton), and a dark-green cushioned neck-collar that was a zip-on with matching dark- green finger-less gloves. I also bought heavy-duty black army boots with steel-toes.

Going into a changing room, I changed easily. Bandages wrapped me totally from my neck down to my waist, arms/hands/fingers included, then from each upper-thigh down to my feet. Then on came the clothes, which were easy enough. The medic-kit went on the opposite hip as the scroll-pouch, and the shuriken holder was put on my right leg. My many, many, _many_ senbon went into my many pockets and the pouches, and two of my ten kunai hooked onto my belt in plain sight. That down, I made sure some of my hair still curves over the metal plate on either side of my Leaf-insignia, and left the store, happy that I still had some money. I went to a medic-nin-specialty-store, and stored up on poison-antidotes and the likes, as well as some poisons and a book on them (which all went into my scroll pouch to keep them separate…it seemed like a handy thing to have, a bunch of non-lethal poisons and such… Could be fun to experiment with, after all…). After that, I went to the Interrogation & Torture Squad Headquarters, and searched for Anko.

I found her bloody and cheerful, bouncing on the toes of her feet, leaving the cell that held Mizuki, and grinned right back at her, kissing her bloody cheek without hesitation, and licking the resulting blood off my lips.

"Have fun, Neesan?" I asked, amused, and she grinned, looking me over.

"If you weren't my otouto, and five years older at least, I'd be having more fun," she informed me, winking. "Very nice choices, bro," she said, ruffling my hair carefully, and laughing as she got some blood in it and made it tacky. I wrinkled my nose slightly, then smiled and shrugged, before handing her the rest of her money. She counted it right there and then, eyed my outfit and full medic-nin kit, then glanced through my poisons kit with a grin. She recommended some things and a scroll to look up in the library, before we headed out to find the I.D. guy who would make my shinobi picture.

"We found him easily and, after handing him his money, he snapped my picture, which I took to the Hokage and turned in. He congratulated me, I smiled, but we were both a little hesitant around each other. Maybe it was the fact that I was raised in the Interrogation Squad by Anko, maybe it was because I was a Jinchuuriki… Maybe it was because I'd seen inside that scroll, and _hadn__'__t_given my word like Naruto had, not to spill its secrets to every Tom, Dick, and Jane out there who wanted to know something from it. Maybe it was only the fact I was an early-graduator, and he had bad luck with those in the past, those who carry the mantle of _genius_.

Who knows? The Hokage's mind is a strange, strange thing…

I think it has something to do with whatever it is he smokes in that pipe, 'cause sometimes it sure as hell don't _smell_ like tobacco!

**1.3**

The day we were supposed to be separated into teams, Naruto started out sitting next to Uchiha Sasuke. (Honestly, I just call him Duckbutt. His hair looks like a Duck's Butt! Honestly, who does that to their hair?) Then Sakura (the girl Naruto has a _huge_ crush on) shoved her way to sit between them. I rolled my eyes, and sat in another seat a little ways away, reading my book about poisons. My friend Shino sat next to me; he's a quiet bug-obsessed kid with black hair and light-sensitive eyes, so he wears sunglasses a lot indoors. I ignored the little drama Naruto had going on over with Duckbutt, though I nearly swallowed my tongue to keep from laughing when they accidentally kissed.

"That was…unexpected," I murmured, snickering, and buried my face into my poisons book. Shino nodded silently, and some of his little bugs buzzed around in agreement. Iruka-sensei finally appeared at the front of the classroom, and I put my book away to pay attention.

"The next step is the assignment of official duties to you all on behalf of our village," he said seriously. "We will begin by dividing you into three-man cells. Each of which will be mentored by a Jounin, a more senior ninja…" he paused, and smiled slightly. "Who will guide and coach you as you become familiar with your various assignments. I made the selections so that each cell's abilities will be approximately equal–" he easily ignored Naruto and some others exclamation at that, and began reading off names and cell numbers. "–Cell Number Four, Mitarashi Midori, Nekotayu Toyuchi, and Yotosuichi Rin–" I nodded as two girls lifted their hands, and we nodded to one another. It seemed I'd be the only team that had two-girls-one-boy opposed to the usual two-boys-one-girl or three-same-gender usual. _And _I was the medic-nin, as opposed to the Nekotayu, who I already knew was a weapons- and summons-user. The Yotosuichi was the only one I'd no information on, and I took careful Intel on both of my Cellmates.

Toyuchi had shoulder-length light brown hair, and used her headband to keep most of it out of her face, except for thick bangs, which covered one half of her face and one dark-brown eye. She had a pretty enough face, and was already developing breasts, which showed with her blue half-dress, which was cut diagonal so that it ended at one hip and at the other mid-thigh. She wore tight black shorts underneath that, and black boots, with the usual black belt. A machete rested over her right shoulder, for easy reach.

Rin had waist-length black hair in an _extremely_ severe braid, arched black brows over blank, cool black eyes and a reserved face. Ah, one of those "A good ninja shows no emotion" types. How the hell is that supposed to work on an undercover mission, huh? Anyway, she was reading a book (About mining, of all things), which she'd pulled from her slightly larger-then-normal scroll pouch (Black weapons belt). She was wearing a dark green dress that stopped above her knees, and black sandals. If I took into account her hardened-looking upper- and lower-arm and leg muscles, I'd say she was our taijutsu expert. And since I preferred long- to mid-range attacks myself (though I'm no slouch at close-range), then we're a pretty rounded off group!

If one of us is pretty damn good at ninjutsu, that is… But never mind that! Oh, it seems Naruto is on Sakura's team with Duckbutt… You know, it's not fair that only Duckbutt gets a name. It's not that I don't like him; I just don't like his hair. I don't like her hair either. I'll call her Pepto from now on. Yup! Naruto-nii, Duckbutt, and Pepto. Toyuchi, Rin, and me.

This is going to get interesting…

"Okay, everyone," Iruka-sensei continue easily, ignoring Pepto and Naruto's little tussle in the seats. "I'll be introducing your senior ninjutsu instructors this afternoon. Until then, you're dismissed!"

**1.4**

"Team Ten," a man with a short bear called, smoking a cigarette.

"Ino, Shikamaru, Choji," Iruka-sensei called; the three immediately went forward, Choji chomping down on a bag of chips to hide his nerves.

"Team Eight," A beautiful woman with black hair and red eyes called; I bit back the instinctive mix of rage and revulsion at the sight, my face giving nothing away. (Seriously, she was like the gorgeous, sane love-child of Tom Riddle and Bellatrix! Gah! MY EYES!). "I believe that is Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuuga Hinata, and Aburame Shino," she continued, smiling slightly at the slightly frazzled-looking Iruka, who laughed weakly and ran off to help someone else find their Genin. I patted my bug-obsessed friend on the back, and he nodded to me, before he walked silently over to join up with his (creepy) Jounin.

"Team Four!" A cheerful, slightly robust man called, with shaggy brown hair, warm brown eyes, and a grinning face. "Nekotayu, Mitarashi, and Yotosuichi!" I slid my poisons book away an jumped over my desk to land in front of him, seeing as how I _was_ in the front row, and saluted easily.

"Mitarashi Midori, at your service," I greeted easily, gnawing on a senbon. Toyuchi pounced on the spot next to me.

"Nekotayu Toyuchi, here and ready for action!" She announced, grinning excitedly. Rin stepped up, glanced up from her book blankly, and stared at him.

"Yotosuichi Rin," she said simply, and went back to reading, as if the book (a different one on the properties of certain minerals) had all the answers in the universe. The Jounin laughed, rubbed the back of his neck, and made a 'this-way/follow-me' gesture, heading out the door. I waved at Naruto, and obediently followed my new sensei, wondering what, exactly, we were going to learn when we got to wherever we were going…

**1.5**

We ended up on the roof of the library, on top of Hokage Mountain. It was really quiet, and even Rin relaxed, putting her book away and leaning back against the edge of the building.

"So, my name is Kanden Tekuno," he said, smiling easily. "This is my first time taking on a Genin squad, though I've been a Jounin for five years. I became a Jounin at twenty, a Chunin at fifteen, and a Genin at twelve. And while we seem to have an overachiever in our midst," he sent a playful wink my way, and I grinned at him and twirled my senbon in my fingers idly, "I want all of you to know that, once you hit Chunin, it's perfectly fine to stay there and never reach higher. Or, if you want to, you could actually become a Tokubetsu Jounin, otherwise known as a specialty Jounin," he grinned when the three of us nodded. "I see you all know someone who's one of those, I guess."

"My Neesan is a Torture/Interrogator," I said offhandedly. Toyuchi shrugged.

"My entire Clan is usually specialty Medic-nins." Rin blinked blankly.

"My brother is a Hunter-nin." Tekuno nodded, grinning, and spread his arms wide.

"See? Lots of different things you can do… Though, frankly, you're kinda scaring me, with the double-douse of Anko going on here," he muttered, eying me, and I grinned cheekily and slid my senbon away, showing him empty hands in a placating manner. He chuckled. "Alright though!" He announced, clapping his hands. "Lets do this thing! The usual standard is this: you introduce yourself with your name and age, then you say your likes, dislikes, hobbies, and dreams, and we'll add any significant notes you want your comrades to know about you, alright?" We nodded. "I'll go first, shall I?" Again, we nodded.

"My name's Kanden Tekuno, I'm twenty-five, and I like weapons(here, Toyuchi cheered), chocolate (I cheered), and bird-watched (silence…). I dislike ramen (I muttered about Naruto yelling at him), orange (CoughNarutoCough), and dango (Oh sweet Kami, _Anko_.). My hobbies are looking at, buying, and training with weapons (insert another cheer from Toyuchi) and playing with my niece and nephew. I dream of one day being a Konoha hero and having a statue built in my honor. Significant notes about me? I like jokes. Bring me a good one, and we'll be friends for a long while!" He grinned, and Toyuchi and I obligingly clapped, while Rin just stared at him, waiting. "Alright, let's go with you, Anko-Mini-me!" I grinned.

"Hiya, I'm Midori, and I'm ten. I like chocolate, my Neesan, Ibiki-oniisama, canines in general (did Toyuchi just _hiss?_) and chocolate–"

"You said chocolate twice," Toyuchi interrupted; I blinked.

"That's because it's just that damn _good_," I told her bluntly; she blinked. "_Any_ways, I _dis_like broccoli, cry babies, fan-girls/boys (collective, agreeable shudder), and shinobi that don't/can't pull their own weight. My hobbies are studying interrogation techniques with Neesan and Ibiki-oniisama! As well as finding other neat skills I can cultivate into my stealth-inclined attacks, like poisons, which I've recently become interested in and need a subject for…" I winked at my slightly pale sensei. "Just kidding, sensei. No practicing on teammates. My dream is to one day die by chocolate." I stared, blinking. "Baring _that_ though, I'd rather like to be an ANBU… Or an interrogator…. Ooh, ooh!" I hopped up and down, grinning. "I can be both! So, yup, that's my dream… And now, significant notes." I stilled, and glared at them darkly, scowling.

"Touch my chocolate and I will torture you to death. My sister is _the_ Mitarashi Anko, so don't think I _won__'__t!_ I've got permission from the freaking Hokage, paired with enhanced senses. I. Will. Find. _You__…_" I beamed at them. "That's it~!" I sing-songed; Toyuchi and Tekuno hesitantly clapped; Rin just stared.

"Your turn Nekotayu," Tekuno said, chuckling a little nervously. The brunet hopped up and turned to face us, smiling warmly at us.

"Hello, I'm Toyuchi, and I'm twelve," she introduced. "I like cats (I winced), weapons (obviously…) and cute things (stare). I _dis_like dogs (I growled), stupid jokes that have to be explained (understandable), and idiots (who _doesn__'__t_?). My hobbies are training with my machete or cat-summons, and sometimes my other weapons. My dream, currently, is to one day be able to summon the Boss Cat like my Kaasan can, but I need better Chakra control for that." She grinned sheepishly at that; Tekuno nodded. "Significant notes about me? Well, I _really_ don't like those cat-based jokes or phrases, so those 'cat-got-your-tongue?' sayings should be used well away from me, or else you can consider them a health risk. Otherwise, that's it…" She smiled, and we clapped again.

"You're turn," I told Rin, who silently stood and stepped up, turning to stare at us with blank black eyes that would do Snape proud.

"I am Rin," she intoned dully. "I'm twelve. I like to read and train. I dislike loudness and boredom. My hobbies are reading and training with my Clansmen and now, I suppose, with you." She gave us a cool, assessing look, then continued on. "My dream is to one day learn the Yotosuichi Clans most secret Jutsu, if I am properly prepared to do so. Significant notes…?" She trailed off, and stared into space for a few seconds.

"I like quiet. You have been warned. Oh, and touch my books, and not even the ANBU will ever be able to find your bodies." She blinked. "That is all." We all stared at her, before Tekuno-sensei cleared his throat and got to his feet.

"Alright," he said simply, calmly. "Formal training begins tomorrow, with a test. If you pass the test, you get to stay as Genin. If you fail, it's back to the Academy for you," he said, smiling easily, but there was an edge to it, a warning. "It won't be a walk in the park, but you should be able to get it alright. I believe in you three. Meet back here tomorrow, at noon. And don't eat breakfast!" He added, before he shunshin'd away, leaving the three of us. I sighed, shook my head, and stretched.

"Well," I said easily, scratching the back of my neck and smiling slightly up at the sky. "This day turned out to be interesting…" Before I hopped down from the roof after waving to my teammates, and headed towards the Interrogation and Torture Squad HQ. I wonder if Anko has any chocolate for me…

Probably not, but it never hurts to check.

**A/N:** First chapter! I own Yotosuichi, Nekotayu, the two unknown Academy pplz, but NOT Kanden Tekuno. He's actually a character from the anime! So, there! Anyways, _**R&R!**_


	2. Derek Bok

**A/N:** And I'm Back with the next chapter!

It's come to my attention (Via **KingDark**) that 'teme' does NOT, in fact, translate to Bastard. I apologize for the misconception. Though, why use a rude form of 'you' on the _end_ of a sentence, I have no idea. "You _teme_" is actually saying "You, _you_" with the second _you_ being "Rude".

Weird languages… But they're still so fun to learn, too! (Grins)

It's pretty much a general consensus of wanting someone to fuck with Midori's/Harry's chocolate now. I'll probably have some dumbass bad guy do that later. For now, ENJOY THE FIC!

MINIMUM NUMBER OF WORDS :

10,000

NUMBER OF WORDS – A/N:

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**Jinchuuriki**

**One**

_"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." ~ Derek Bok._

**0.0**

"Hello, class!" Tekuno-sensei greeted when he appeared on the Library roof. Toyuchi and I stopped playing rock-paper-scissors to wave at him, while Rin merely hummed, her nose buried in my poisons book (which I had already finished and memorized… Thank you assassin training-techniques!) I think she's the Ravenclaw/Slytherin of the group, and Toyuchi and I are both Gryffindors, while I have the Slytherin as well… We have no Hufflepuffs. Damn, sorry Helga! …Oh, no, wait! We're all badger-house-loyal to Konoha! There we go, now we're safe from her wrath! …And Tekuno is staring at me, so it's obvious I totally buzzed out on whatever he was going to say. I grinned at him, and saluted.

"Yo," I said, grinning. &Somewhere on the other side of town, a certain silver-haired shinobi sneezes, and feels strangely pleased with himself&

"So what are we doing today, Tekuno-sensei?" Toyuchi asked curiously; I crouched next to her and scratched my nose, before popping a sucker in my mouth (I'm orally fixated, alright? And no perverted jokes! Fluffy-the-Demented-Pomeranian is bad enough with them &Grumble, grumble&) to roll it around. Rin slips a tissue into my book and slides it into her pack silently, focusing totally on our sensei with us.

"Today's test is a reconstruction of a B-Rated mission you might have to do when you're Chunin, made easier because the information isn't dire, you don't need to worry about being killed off, and it's here in Konoha," Tekuno told us, all smiles and jokes gone now, in place of serious solemnity. "Your duty is to find the person with the matching scroll to this one," he held up a blue map scroll, with purple designs. "It has, inside it, for this exercise, lets say the names of some very high-profile missing-nin, and their locations. Your targets life is at risk if they're seen giving this information to you. You are to find them, without being seen, and get this information, before five-o'clock, and you're not allowed to eat, understand? ANBU don't count for this exercise, but we'll work on that later. You may start now," he said.

I snatched the scroll and tossed it to Rin, who slid it into her pouch immediately, and we started towards the village, only to head back and check the library first, just in case it was right under our noses. That done, we started moving out, and I unconsciously took the lead, being smaller and faster then the other two, and knowing the shadows better. We paused on top of a shop, and watched the people intensely.

"This is going to be hard," Toyuchi muttered; I pursed my lips, and then smiled.

"How many cats can you summon?" I asked her; she blinked, confused.

"Just Yuki-kun and Yachi-chan, at the same time. I can summon five all together but only one at a time for the other three." I nodded.

"Summon those two, and then send them out to do recon," I told her, and glanced at Rin; she shook her head.

"I am a tai-, and genjutsu specialist," she murmured. "I do not do well with ninjutsu." I nodded, took a deep breath, and waited while Toyuchi summoned her two cats. They were two Siamese cats, Yuki with a blue bow on his neck, and Yachi with a pink, and were twins. We gave them their orders and sent them on their way. They disappeared silently out into the crowd. I turned my back and quickly formed the required hand-signs.

"_Kage Ookami!"_ I hissed; a medium-sized wolf-like dog rose from my shadow and became flesh and blood, shaking out his gray-black fur, amber eyes bright. I murmured his orders, and her leapt from the roof after getting the scent of the scroll. Hopefully, it would help.

"I've never seen a Jutsu like that before," Toyuchi whispered, moving back from where she had cringed away from the dog, hissing. I shrugged, nodding down towards the crowd.

"Secret," I murmured idly. "I can make more then one, and anything they know when they disintegrate, I'll know, but more then one unknown canine will catch attention with the Inuzuka. We're on a mission, right now, and attention is the _last_ thing we need."

"Hai," my two female teammates agreed, and we moved one, searching hard, moving to another district. Three hours in the blistering sun, and nothing, not a clue, not a scent, until Yachi _and_ my Kage wolf both returned to our sides with information…Well, Yachi returned. My wolf popped itself in order to feed me the information.

"The lady who runs the fruit stand has the other scroll," I murmured; Yachi nodded, purring as Toyuchi scratched her chin.

"**That is what I came to tell all of you,"** she said in a very proper, regal way, as if she was brought up in a very high state of being and was only allowed to speak with us because she was bored or something… Actually, that's how I picture almost all purebred cats talking, so its' fine. We thanked her, and then made our way there with her at our side, to find her brother curled up and napping in the sun on the roof directly across from the place.

"**Took you long enough," **he yawned. **"I almost hacked a hairball when I had to deal with that flea-bitten mongrel, but his Chakra smelled like one of yours, so I left him well enough alone."** Actually, come to think of it, there was a bit of that southern belle twang in there! Huh, never would have seen that coming…

"How we gonna do this without being seen?" Toyuchi murmured; I pursed my lips.

"Allow me," Rin murmured, and leaped away quickly. Soon, she was on the roof of the fruit-stall, laid out flat. She'd be invisible to those who walked by underneath and in the street. The woman who had the scroll sticking out of her kimono, glanced around, and I tilted my headband so that the sun glinted off it, flashing brightly once. Idly, as if she only just thought about it, she set the scroll off to the side and helped a customer with his heavy order of groceries. As we watched, Rin's braid slid down in the shadow of the stalls beams, moved _towards_ the scroll, _wrapped_ around it, and then pulled itself back up, and all of this _without _Rin moving her hands to do more then a few hand-seals.

"That was brilliant," I breathed, wide-eyed; Toyuchi nodded.

"I wondered why the Yotosuichi hair was always so long," she murmured as Rin crawled her way onto the sturdier, neighboring roof, crouched, and began to make her way back towards us. "It's because they can make it come _alive_ like that! Awesome…" By the time Rin returned, we'd gotten over our awe of her moving-hair, and we back to our business-like approach on things… meaning, we gave each other high-fives, Toyuchi and I gave silent victory dances, and _then_ we dashed off to Hokage Mountain, back to the library roof, with an hour and twenty-five minutes left before our time was up. Grinning, Toyuchi handed Tekuno-sensei the Fruit-ladies scroll, and Rin handed him the scroll she'd taken from him. I popped a new sucker in my mouth and rocked back and forth on my heels, eager to be away, so that I could freaking _eat already_. He opened the Scroll from Rin, and purple glitter burst out. He nodded. He opened the scroll from Fruit-lady… and yellow glitter burst out. He nodded, smiling, well, _grinning_.

"Congratulations, you pass!" He declared; Toyuchi and I hooted, and gave each other high-fives again. I bumped shoulders with Rin, who otherwise merely nodded. "Tell me, did you fall for the fake scroll?" I started to shake my head, but Toyuchi smiled sheepishly.

"Yuki-kun and Yachi-chan spent and hour following the rice-ball maker before they saw that _that_ scroll had a red kanji on the end, when our scroll has a _blue_ kanji," she admitted; I smiled at her reassuringly and Rin merely shrugged, not saying a word, as Tekuno-sensei nodded and got to his feet.

"Well done Team Four!" he congratulated again. "Tomorrow, we'll start training as a team! After a week or so of that, we'll start taking missions, alright? I want us to get a feel for everybody's moves and such before that, though, just so we know who needs to work on what, and who needs to watch whose back, okay? I suggest you go eat, now, though, and we'll meet back here again tomorrow, lets say eight o'clock on the dot, alright?" We nodded, grinning. He gave us a huge grin and a thumbs up. "Good job, guys! I knew you could do it!" We laughed, said goodbye, and ran in opposite directions. I headed straight for the dango-shop, where I _knew_ Anko would be at this time, my stomach growling.

_Man_ I was _starving_!

**0.1**

I dove to the left, dodging a swift swing of Toyuchi's machete, clenching my teeth on my senbon tightly.

"Dammit, watch where you swing that thing!" I snapped, irritated when a quick reverse-grip on it means she almost impales me. "I may be a medic-nin but I can't heal _that_ damn fast yet!" She's grinning maniacally, and I can't help but grin back, 'cause she looks _just_ like Anko for a minute there, and it's fucking _sad_ when that's _comforting_. I pull a kunai from my belt and twist to the side to create a smaller target, using one hand to parry her larger weapon, making it graze past, and bring my free arm up holding another kunai to swipe at her face. With a curse, she jumps back, giving me some _fucking_ breathing room, and I quickly form hand-seals, and send three of my wolves after her ass. She hisses, and throws her own kunai, popping two, but the third one dodges, and lunges, to take a hit with her machete, but they've done their job, and I've gotten even more breathing room, having jumped even farther back now, into the lower branches of a tree. I fill my finger-space with senbon, and crouch there, watching her, growling at her and waiting for my shot.

"You're good," she told me, bouncing from foot to foot. "You're a better aim then I am with those damn things, though," she added, wincing and tugging one from her shoulder, where I'd gotten her at the beginning of our spar and she only just had time to notice. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of the ones dosed in minor Paralyzation poisons (It would wear off with either the antidote or in ten-to-fifteen hours). Tekuno-sensei stepped forward, clapping his hands twice to signal us to stop, and we both dropped our ready-positions. I put my weapons away, and began scouring the place for my twelve thrown senbon and single thrown kunai, while Toyuchi got her three thrown kunai and the five shuriken she threw at me at the beginning.

"Very good!" our sensei told us warmly. "Midori recognized that Toyuchi was better at the close-range combat, and sought ways to make her back off, until he could get into his comfortable mid- to long-range areas. Toyuchi looked for ways to get in close, to get him _out_ of those comfort zones, though she can use some long- and mid-range weaponry as well, though not, it seems, to Midori's degree, am I right?" We both nodded, and I grinned, setting about healing the small wounds I'd managed to give her, having already healed my own. "Great job, you two! Rin, why don't you and Toyuchi fight next, and then we'll rest for lunch, before you and Midori fight, okay?" We nodded, and the two kunoichi stood across from each other. Toyuchi had her machete in hand, and Rin had her fists up, eyes bright and focused intently. "Ready and…. Start!"

I sat down while the two of them went at it, and stretched out my muscles, sighing happily. Tekuno kept his attention completely on the girls, so I went through my weapons pouches, and made sure I didn't mix any of my senbons up. I had started putting a small paint marker on all my senbons so that when I added a poison of some kind to them, or didn't, I could tell which was which immediately. Paralyzers where blue, hallucinogens were yellow, poisons (as in, sickness and unconsciousness, _not death_) was purple, _deadly_ poisons would be green (I wouldn't get to play with _those _until I was a Chunin_, _though), and normal, untouched senbon had white. I had the antidotes for all of them in little bottles the corresponding colors in my medic-bag, too, so I was all neat and color-coordinated, like a good little ninja!

"That's good!" Tekuno-sensei called after fifteen-minutes of fighting; Rin had managed to get Toyuchi in a genjutsu, and we watched for a few seconds, as she fought absolutely nothing, looking vaguely terrified, before Rin cancelled it.

"Dogs," Toyuchi muttered, shuddering, as I hurried to heal their wounds. "Dogs _everywhere_…" I winced, and awkwardly patted her on the head, uncertain as to what to do, since we had a little, ah, _problem_ with one another concerning that.

"Well," Tekuno-sensei said, shaking his head, "You're both pretty good at close-range, though Rin is much better at taijutsu then weapons, and she's obviously skilled at genjutsu. You'll need to watch out for that weakness in battle, Toyuchi," he warned gently, kindly. "Getting trapped in an enemies genjutsu is never fun, especially when its one that plays on your fears." She nodded, shivering. "Well, lets eat, and then ret for a bit, before Rin and Midori can work out. Then I'll set a training schedule for you each separately, that you can do at home or with each other, alright team?" We all nodded, and then dug into the food he'd set up for us.

**0.2**

Rin and I stood across from each other, watching one another in silence and seriousness. There was no playful grinning, no posturing, no cat-calling (sorry, Toyuchi). Rin wouldn't react to it anyways, and I wouldn't either, not really. It would only be a ploy, in order to get the enemy to react. If the enemy wouldn't react, then why both wasting your breath? When Tekuno-sensei says go, we're both moving, me, away, and her, towards. We both know my greatest weakness, her greatest strength, is taijutsu… or, at least, they _think _that, and let them think it. Later, I can say that " have been practicing greatly or something. For now, it does no harm, letting them think they know something like that about me.

Quickly, I summon a pack of eight wolves, to slow her down, get in her way, protect me, and then use the remaining two to block the handful of senbon I throw at her, the blue and white paints glinting from the middles as they fly. They pop my wolves as they lunge at my teammate, who prepared herself to hit them, and so is unprepared for my senbons, and gets hit with them squarely. She grimaces, and makes quick hand movements, murmuring something under her breath.

Like that, her braid is alive, like a snake, snapping my way and growing the twenty feet between us. I curse, leap into the air, and Kawarmi out of its way with a quickly made wolf, which gets wrapped in the braid and crushed with one powerful clench. I shudder, as the memory of the feeling filters through the back of my mind. Luckily for me, the Paralyzation is taking fast, two minutes is all it takes to set in, and she can't feel her left arm, right leg, or left side. I through more senbons, these ones glinting mostly white, though some more blue glint in here and there. The hair-python she's got guarding her now takes most of them out, and I crouch, eying her, and purse my lips.

'**She has to stay still,'** Juu told me suddenly, poking at my attention. **'Look, Ningen. She hasn't moved since she's gotten her braid to do that. She **_**has**_** to stay still.'** I blinked, then nodded, thanking him mentally and throwing him a bone, before I swiftly summoned twenty wolves and sent them forward. Her hair destroyed them all pretty quickly, though one _nearly_ got to her, but, unfortunately for _her_, _I_ was already out of sight.

After a few seconds, I was in position and, with a careful breath, burst out of the ground, shoving two of my senbon with my Paralyzation poison on them into the nerves in the bottom of her feet, and sending her sprawling with a sharp cry of pain. She clutched at her feet with her good hand, and, as I watched, her braid shrank and shriveled back to its usual size without delay. Moving swiftly, I pulled a kunai, darted forward, and pressed it to her throat, pausing and meeting her eyes, panting lightly, tiredly. Pained, she met my eyes, and nodded stifled.

"Oh, wow!" Toyuchi cried, and her and Tekuno-sensei applauded, while I quickly started healing Rin, pulling my senbon from her and murmuring apologies as I went. I popped the antidote-pills from my medic-bag and handed them to her with a small bottle of water; she chugged it, gasping softly, and sighed, two minutes later, when feeling returned with the tingling of limbs that had fallen asleep.

"Where on earth did you learn that Jutsu, Midori?" Tekuno-sensei demanded, surprised and pleased. "That's an advanced Jutsu, you shouldn't know that yet!" I grinned sheepishly, and took a swig from my water bottle since Rin was done with it now.

"My sister works for Interrogation and Torture Squad," I said sheepishly. "They use all sorts of neat Justus around me all the time, growing up. I memorized them." Shaking his head, our sensei looked baffled but delighted, and waited for us to calm down before giving us our homework. I was to work on my close-range weakness, and hone my mid- and long-range strengths. Toyuchi was to work with more weapons, expand her knowledge, and try and find time to strengthen her mind against strong genjutsu. Rin was to work on her taijutsu speed, and also to see if she can use her Clan-Jutsu while moving, as it was her biggest weakness, as I exploited. With that, we were dismissed, and started walking together towards town.

"What do you want to do now?" Toyuchi asked, rubbing her sore hands lightly; I shrugged.

"Train?" I suggested; Rin nodded grimly.

"Yes," she agreed.

"We can see if we can use my Neesan's training grounds at the Interrogation and Torture Squad HQ," I suggested, then shivered. "I warn you now, if she says yes, then we might just get to visit Hell for a few hours," I said darkly; they looked at each other, before Toyuchi threw an arm over my shoulder.

"But, see, that's why you're our medic-nin, Midori-chan!" she chirruped, grinning, and even Rin's lips quirked, very briefly, into a small mini-smile (Gasp!). I groaned, but led the way.

Maybe this would even be fun…?

**0.3**

"I _so_ hate your sister, Midori-chan," Toyuchi moaned, arm wrapped over my shoulders and leaning against me heavily. I grunted, carrying her weight, along with Rin's, tiredly toward the Nekotayu Compound. I'd healed our wounds as well as I could, but there are some things (like sore muscles) that only rest and a good stretch can fix. So, instead, since I heal faster than the girls, I offered to help them to their respective homes.

"I _really_ hope you're didn't bring a dog in here, Toyuchi!" A man's voice called when we entered the main building of the Compound, and I rolled my eyes in vague amusement.

"I feel _so_ appreciated right now," I muttered. "I get insulted while playing pack-mule." Grunting, I lowered my teammate into a chair and nodded to the familiar-looking man who entered the room frowning. "We overdid it at training, sir," I explained politely; the girls snorted.

"Your _sister_ overdid it at training us," Toyuchi muttered darkly, groaning as she stretched. I shrugged at the man who, judging by both his scent and his facial structure, was either Toyuchi's dad or _way_ older brother.

"Anko-neesan is very…"

"Insane?" Toyuchi offered dryly. "Vicious? Cruel? Nasty?" I glared at her.

"Driven," I said, scowling. "She wants us to be the best we can be, and is willing to push us way out of our comfort zones in order to do that." Rin set a hand on my shoulder, face as tiredly blank as it had been for the last few hours, before she turned her attention on Toyuchi.

"You're just displeased because she made you work against an Inuzuka and his dog, and you lost," she said; Toyuchi stiffened, hissing furiously, then slumped, looking away, to glare at the table. I sighed, shook my head, and gave her most-probably-father a polite bow, Rin painfully copying me.

"Mitarashi Midori, Toyuchi's teammate on Team Four," I introduced myself. Rin nodded slightly.

"Yotosuichi Rin, also Toyuchi's teammate. We must be leaving now," she added, as we carefully straightened and I once more gently took her weight. "I must get back to my own Compound before nightfall, and Midori-chan must return to his own home as well. Goodnight, Toyuchi-chan," she said, and I copied her farewell; Toyuchi quickly bid us goodbye as well, her cheeks slightly pink under the reprimanding look her father was sending her way, and we hobbled out the door and towards the Yotosuichi grounds.

Thirty minutes later, we arrived, and I was greeted passing through the Compound by a plump, pretty woman with her absurdly long braid rolled up in a bun, and warm black eyes.

"Rin!" She cried, looking exasperated but fondly amused as she bustled over, bringing with her the scent of fresh-baked apple pies and dango… Which made me hungry, by the way, but no. I didn't eat her. Shame on you for thinking so badly of me!

"Hello, Mother," Rin greeted back, sounding half-asleep against my back, and I gently maneuvered her into her mothers strong kunoichi arms. The woman shook her head, and jerked her head in a 'follow-me' gesture to me; what else was I to do but obey? She reminded me of a black-haired, softer-voiced Mrs. Weasley, whose word was law inside the house and out, when it came to certain things. Maybe it's just certain mothers who are like that…

Maybe I'm a pansy. Who knows for certain?

"You sit down over there," the woman ordered me, gesturing towards a table, where a man with a familiar blank expression and hair nearly twice as long as hers sat, sipping sake. "I'll just drop Rin off in her bed, and then I'll be back to get some tea in you so you can properly introduce yourself. Not that I don't already have a notion of who you must be, but still!" She huffed at me, and hustled out of the room, Rin's face hiding in her neck, eyes closed in a doze. I gingerly sat across from the man, and we stared, unblinking, at one another, for a good six minutes, before the woman entered.

"I don't like you," the man said coolly; the woman hissed.

"Raku!" We ignored her, though. This was some strange, masculine bonding thing-a-majig we had to do.

"You don't have to like me," I told him. "You just have to be able to trust me to watch Rin's back." We stared at one another, while Rin's mother muttered about the 'idiocies of men' and bustled about, making me tea. When she sat my empty cup in front of me, Raku took the pot, and poured my cup.

"Welcome, then, Mitarashi-san," he murmured; I inclined my head.

"Please," I said. "Call me Midori-chan. Everyone else does." I smiled easily, and the Yotosuichi Clan Head smiled faintly back.

**0.4**

"I can't believe you haven't even gone on a mission yet!" Naruto exclaimed, grinning at me from the tree. I snorted and threw a rock at him lightly, catching it when he tossed it back.

"We're doing team-training," I reminded him idly, gnawing on a senbon. "I actually _like_ training with my teammates. They're interesting, while you just have Duckbutt and Pepto to deal with. One always going all broody and 'don't slow me down' and the other spending too little time working and too much time mooning after Duckbutt! You're the one with the shorter stick in _this_ arrangement, buddy," I informed him, and he glared at me.

"Don't make fun of Sakura-chan!" He shouted, but made no move to tackle me playfully, like he would have any other time before. I sighed wistfully. Naruto had changed since Mizuki had spilled the beans about the Kyuubi. Oh, to everyone else, he was still the same old fox-grin-brat, but around me, he was different. More careful, hesitant. Like he was afraid that _I_ would be afraid. I was sick and tired of it.

"Hey, Naruto-nii?" I said quietly; he hummed to show he was listening. "You remember what Mizuki said, back in the forest?" He stiffened, blue eyes squinting shut to hide his eyes.

"Yeah, of course I do, baka!" He complained; I didn't look away from watching the clouds.

"I've kinda got a secret, like that, too," I said quietly, seriously. I paused, and then started again. "There's this demon, known as Juu no Ookami, and he was a ten-tailed Wolf Demon who pillaged the Outer Lands, the lands outside of the Hidden Countries." Naruto was focused on me, now, totally focused, eyes glued on my form. "Anyway, I don't know how it happened, or what he did, but someone made a deal with a Shinigami named Jashin-sama, who rules over here in the Hidden Countries as the Lord of Slaughter-this is his sign, by the way," I added, lifting my treasured medallion up to show him idly. "Anyways, someone made a deal to seal Juu away, inside a baby. Just like Kyuubi was sealed in you." I smiled thinly. "I was just lucky enough to be that baby." We were silent for a minute as he soaked that in.

"So, you're…?" he breathed; I nodded.

"A Jinchuuriki, like you, though my powers are a bit warped, since my demons realm of power lies in only the demon realm and the Outer Lands, but," I shrugged, "What's a kid to do?" I glared at him suddenly. "Are you going to stop acting like I'll break around you now, or run screaming like you just died Pepto's hair purple?" He nodded sheepishly, and then his eyes flashed.

"Damn it, bastard, stop making fun of Sakura-chan's hair!" He cried, and full-out tackled me. I grunted, and flipped him off me, before I took off running, laughing as he quickly gave chase.

Naruto-nii was _ba-ack_!

**0.5**

The three of us stared blankly at the Hokage.

"You've got to be kidding me," Toyuchi said. "_Those_ are our options for missions? They all _suck_!" She looked ready to throw a tantrum, but I smacked her upside the back of the head, grabbed her and Rin by the arm, and dragged them out of the room, popping my head back in to say a quick 'We'll be back in a moment'. "Midori-chan! You can't possibly want to _do_ these _baby-jobs_!" She hissed at me; I glared at her, scowling.

"Of course not," I snapped. "But they're for the good of the village and _someone_ has to do them. Incase you never paid any attention around Konoha, we see Chunin and Jounin doing some of these too, probably when they're strapped for cash and waiting for high-ranked and better-paying jobs. If _they_ can handle them, then _we_ sure as hell can!" She slumped, scowling, and I rubbed my nose with a sigh, glancing over my shoulder at the Hokage door, where I heard Tekuno-sensei talking with the Hokage about something, and muffled laughter.

"How about this," I coaxed, deciding that a nice middle ground would work. "We'll do a certain number of D-Ranks, and then ask Sensei for a C-Rank. Alright? Once we have that complete, we can set a pattern of half as many D-Ranks as the first time, and then a C-Rank again. This way, we build a reputation around town, and a good dose of experience, alright? It's a win-win, with the only down-side being actually doing the D-Ranks. Deal?" I asked, setting my fist in the middle.

"Deal," Rin agreed immediately, setting her hand on mine. We waited patiently as Toyuchi thought it out, before she sighed, agreed, and slapped her hand on ours. We re-entered the Hokage-s office with a much calmer attitude, and started pouring over the D-Ranks without hesitation.

"I vote Midori chooses," Toyuchi finally said; Rin agreed, and I shrugged, and picked one at random. The Hokage raised his eyebrow and grinned.

"'Clean Old Lady Miki's House', eh? Oh, you'll have a time with that one," he chuckled, and nodded at our sensei, who winced. I shrugged as Toyuchi glared at my seemingly bad choice, and we left.

**0.6**

"Be careful with that, it's worth more then you're pathetic little fingers, you imbecile, which I will _remove_ if you drop it!" Old Lady Miki snapped up at me as I balanced on her old ladder, carefully moving her small candleholder on the ceiling, freshly dusted, polished, and bronzed until it _shone_. Kami, she was an old, female _Snape_, with dark gray hair and beady black eyes, and a hawk-bill for a nose, too! I bit back a frustrated sigh.

"Yes, ma'am," I immediately replied, knowing anything else would get me in far worse trouble (Toyuchi had gotten work in the back yard, cleaning up where the septic-tank had blown. The sewage company was on its way, but my teammate had to keep the…ah…_muck_, from getting into Ms. Miki's flowers and house.). Ms. Miki huffed, glowered up at me, and shuffled off to bark at Rin, who was polishing her late husbands boots in silence. Tekuno-sensei was hiding somewhere out front, well-away from Ms. Miki's prized grass and flowers, and I couldn't really blame him, since he had, at one time, apparently, during his youth, _broken_ a window and damaged some of those precious petunias and lilies (Ironic, I know, to see them prospering together here.).

I sighed, wiped my brow, climbed down, and moved five feet to the _next_ cobweb-and-dust-caked-candleholder, as Ms. Miki insisted everything be done, by hand, _one at a time_, and since she was paying nearly enough for a C-Rank, we obliged (though Toyuchi contemplated murder). Honestly, my old hand at the Dursley's came into play, and we got done a _lot_ faster then we probably would have otherwise, leaving with three small tins of cookies and thermoses of the most utterly _divine_ hot-chocolate I have ever tasted.

"If you ever need your house cleaned again, ma'am," I told her seriously as she scowled at us in the doorway. "Just call on Team Four and, as soon as we've finished whatever missions we're already on, we'll come and help out, no problem." I smiled warmly when I finished, and she blushed, snarled at me, and slammed the door in my face. Still smiling, I ate one rather weird-tasting oatmeal-cookie, and returned to my Team, pleased with myself.

"Mission Clean House: Completed," Tekuno-sensei said, amused.

When we went to pick up our money, we got twice as much as we were supposed to.

**0.7**

"What did you do to him?" Toyuchi asked, scandalized, as I fled from the supposedly 'helpless' cat, Tora, who had a mad-hair up his ass and hated me.

"Nothing!" I yelped, dodging claws as I scrabbled away from him. "_You_ better do something, though, or our client's getting a corpse back instead!" I yelped as the cat nearly got my leg, only to watch from the corner of my eye as a large, flat-faced Persian tackled the large cat to the ground, the ribbon on its ear catching the sun as it fell.

"Good job, Yemon!" Toyuchi cheered to her summons, who pinned the smaller cat down with a thunderous growl, his black and white splotched fur making him a rather intimidating feline. Reaching into my pouch, I pulled out a senbon with orange paint (for immediate unconsciousness, a new poison I made myself with Anko's help, and _very_ useful.) and tossed it, getting a yowl from Tora. A few seconds later, Yemon moved away, and we gathered around the unconscious feline.

"Why didn't you do that in the first place?" Rin asked pointedly; I rolled my eyes.

"I couldn't get a good hit," I said simply. "I'll give cats one thing, they're small and hard targets, really fast when they want to be." Toyuchi preened, like _she_ had just been complimented, and picked up the cat. As we made our way back to the Missions Office, we waited until we were just outside before I gave Tora the antidote and kept out of his sight. Watching his reunion with his owner, though, I grimaced slightly in sympathy (though only on the inside. Outside, I smiled cheerfully and said 'no problem, any time' when she thanked us). His ribs had to _hurt_…

"Mission Find Lost Pet: Completed."

**0.8**

"Who knew there was so much trash at a _park_?" Toyuchi exclaimed, wrinkling her nose in disgust as we used the poky-sticks to jab at the trash hiding in bushes and tufts of grass. We were each on our third bag, and only two thirds of the park had been covered. "People are _disgusting_!" Rin nodded.

"Maybe this is to teach us that lesson, or remind us of that, or something," I suggested idly, jabbing an empty drink cup. "We be ninjas: Killing disgusting people off is what we do, and doing so helps make the world safer, and cleaner." They stared at me, then returned to work, looking thoughtful. I shrugged, and proceeded to stab trash, every once in a while pretending to be on Star-Wars or something and have an epic sword-fight with no one, to which the girls would mutter 'boys' and Tekuno-sensei would just chuckle and return to playing solitaire.

When we finished, we'd each cleaned five bags of trash in seven hours. Our backs and bodies ached, our noses itched, and our stomachs growled fiercely.

"Operation Clean Up Park: Completed."

"Thank Kami!"

"Shut up, Toyuchi."

**0.9**

"What exactly _is _a sweet potato?" I asked no one in particular as we hoed a large plot of dirt on a farm about an hours walk north of Konohagakure. The farmer was a very kind old man, who provided refreshments and everything, but was too old to hoe his own field. His grandson would be over in two weeks time, but by then the seeds would be rotten and no good, so we were hired to hoe for him.

"It's an orange potato that's sweet, dobe," Toyuchi declared, rolling her eyes.

"'_The Sweet Potato is a diactotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae,'_" Rin said abruptly, reading aloud from a book _on_ Sweet Potatoes. We stopped to stare/listen. "_'It's large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are an important root-vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. Of the approximately fifty genera, and more then one thousand species of Convolvulaceae, it is the only crop of major importance–some others are used locally, but are actually poisonous. The Sweet Potato is only distantly related to the potato.'_" She closed her book, put it back in her bag, and got back to work.

"Huh," I said, and shrugged at Toyuchi. "Learn something new every day." We finished two hours later, ate a piece of chocolate cake, and left.

"Mission Dig Sweet Potatoes: Complete."

**1.0**

"Not again!" I cried, running from Tora. "Evil cat, _evil!_" I swear, Jashin-sama is laughing at me, and if I didn't have him on almost constant mute for his 'You should kill her/him/it' comments, Juu would be too. Luckily, Rin wrapped Tora up in her braid, and I was able to drug him again.

"Mission Find Lost Pet: Completed."

"Again."

"Shut up, Midori."

"But it _hates_ me!"

"Suck it up, you're a shinobi!"

"Bite me Toyuchi… Ow! Not _literally_, you she-demon!"

**1.1**

"I thought you guys only _summoned_ cats," I complained, grimacing as I used a mask to cover my sensitive mouth and nose while dumping the kitty litter into the trash. Rin nodded in agreement, copying me. Toyuchi shrugged.

"We foster the cats from the shelter and train with them, too, you know," she informed us haughtily, though she gagged just like I did when the litter-dust got stuck in her throat. "My cousin has five nin-cats that work just like the Inuzuka dogs. You said it yourself, Midori-chan. They're fast, hard to hit, and _small_. They can get into things, get out of things, and they're _smart_." She tapped her forehead with her gloved hand, and nodded sagely. I grimaced.

"They couldn't just go _outside_ in the _yard_ like _animals_?" I whined, and dumped another litter box as she began to scold me. An hour later, we finished, all eighteen boxes emptied, washed, dried, and refilled, before being put back in their proper places.

"Mission Clean Up the Nekotayu Kitty-Boxes: Complete."

"Don't say anything, Midori-chan."

"Thank Kami it's over."

"Rin!"

"What? That smell had a _taste_ and it's in my _hair_."

"…True. Never mind!"

**1.2**

"Evil cat. Die," I growled, and threw a handful of senbon at the charging feline. Tora nimbly swerved, dodging _every single one_ of them… And ran directly into my trap, yowling in fury as he was snapped up into a cat-carrying box. I smirked, did a victory dance, and picked it up, carrying it past my amused teammates.

"Midori, one, Tora, zero. Oh yeah, I'm the ninja." Tekuno-sensei shook his head.

"Once again, Mission Find Missing Pet: Completed."

"Second time in three days, Sensei. Can't someone else find him?"

"Sorry, Toyuchi. She requests us 'cause we find him so fast."

"Damn" &Scowls& "Not _our_ fault we have his Catnip on our Team!"

"Watch it, Toyuchi-chan, I might think you're starting to like me!"

"Shove off, Midori-chan!"

**1.3**

"My arms are falling off," Toyuchi moaned painfully, slumping down next to her pile of firewood. I sighed and wiped my brow. _Damn_ it was hot…

"It's not that bad, Toyuchi-chan," Rin scolded lightly, though even she was panting as she heaved her log chunks to the side and got another to cut, muscles trembling. Her pile was the biggest, mine following, and Toyuchi's the smallest.

"The Nara's are just too damn lazy to cut their own wood," the cat-Summoner snapped, scowling as she heaved herself to her feet; I sighed.

"It doesn't matter who the customer is or what they do," I scolded her, swinging the axe and feeling rather pleased with the reverberating _thud_ it made as it chopped the log in two. "All that matters is that _they_ hired _us_ to do a job, and we're _well_ within our power to _do _it!" I grunted, having chopped another log on every emphasized word. I was determined to catch up with Rin, though she had better muscle-tone and could handle swinging more then I could… Though you'd think Toyuchi would be good, since it _is _a weapon… "Pretend it's a weapons practice," I suggested, inspires. "You _are_ using an axe, and the wood is harder then a human body. If you can swing and cut through it continuously and easily, then think of how you would use it if it was your only weapon in battle, okay?" She perked up, and grinned. She started tearing into her wood like she was possessed, and I met Tekuno-sensei's eyes across the field. He gave me a thumbs up, and I winked, grinning, and went back to trying to catch up to Rin.

By the time we finished, it was sundown, and all our piles had remained equal-or-nearly-so for the last hour. Exhausted, bodies screaming, we collapsed against each other on the ground, gasping.

"Mission Chop Wood for the Nara's: Complete!"

"&Cheer&"

**1.4**

"Eggs, bacon, bread, rice…" the list went on, and as Rin read it off, Toyuchi pilled more and more of the required groceries into my basket. I winced under the weight, but held my ground. Soon, Rin and Toyuchi each had their own, smaller basket, and we were moving. Our next mission: Restock the kitchens of the ANBU HQ. A _lot_ of hungry, calorie-burning shinobi, who needed healthy food, or food they could grab fast. This was our fourth run of six to restock, and we had two more lists to complete. AND we had the Bear ANBU following us around to make sure the starving 'cadet ANBU' and some of the older ones didn't mob us. When we finished three hours later, arms pulsing weakly, we each got a candy bar and a pat on the head from him before we were sent on our way. We shrugged; high-five'd, and left.

"Mission Restock ANBU HQ: Complete!"

**1.5**

"Gah!" I announced, falling to lie on my back before the giant pile of paperwork Toyuchi shoved my way. "Paperwork! _NOOOO!_ It's evil! And demented! And a torture technique! I should know!" She stared at me with an blank expression I _know_ she stole from Rin, who was already digging through her share of the Missions Work and organizing them by Rank.

"Are you finished?" she asked; I nodded meekly, and she nodded. "Good. Work now, cry later." I looked at the pile of paper, which was as tall as I was standing… and whimpered. But I _did_ get to organizing. _Escort, escort, Assassination, Find Tora, escort, message, Missing-nin, capture, kill, blah-blah-blah…_ I quickly and easily sorted them, settling into my business-like assassin mindscape, the one where I had too many kill/bodyguard/party-requests and needed to sort them via importance level. Settling the A-, B-, C-, D-Rank echelon into mind, I speed-read faster then even Rin could, and finished my work neatly and silently, handing the left over three rolled scrolls to the Hokage with a dazed blink.

"These are S-Ranked, and I had no clue where to put them," I told him, shrugging, and went to help Toyuchi, who would be here longest if left by herself. She gratefully slid me half her pile, and we got to work while he glanced over the three missions and quietly called a few ANBU and a Jounin or two to deal with those missions. Six hours of reading (my eyes feel like they're gonna _bleed, _and even Rin's are blood shot) we finished.

"Mission Organize Hokage Missions: Complete!" I sobbed and collapsed, to be dragged from the room, crying my relief. "He'll be fine with some chocolate, no worries, Hokage-sama…"

**1.6**

"Caught you!" I announced, scooping Tora up; he hissed and growled, but didn't try to scratch me, to busy clawing and gnawing at the little purple doll I'd made just for this occasion. Toyuchi was wearing a mask to protect herself from the scent, and Rin was smiling slightly. I shrugged. "What? _You _got me thinking about it! A Catnip plushy seemed the perfect answer, and he _hats_ the color purple, which is why he hates Neesan too. I'll keep it in a sealing scroll in case we get this mission again, no worries." Tekuno-sensei laughed and shook his head while Tora was torn between snarling at the purple and purring at the Catnip.

"Mission Find Missing Pet is, once again, Complete."

"Mreow!"

**1.7**

"Run Toyuchi, run!" I shouted, tearing after the Inuzuka dogs and trying to cat up with them as my terrified teammate took for the hills, the fifteen excited animals on her scent. Even jumping on a roof only slowed them down, as they _were_ nin-dogs. Rin had long ago decided to try and circle around, while I used my _Kage Ookami_ to keep up with the pack. Frustrated, I threw a mass of orange-painted senbon at the pack, and was gratified by the yelps. Making more wolves and ordering them to stay with the downed dogs, I continued on, and continued knocking the dogs out, until Toyuchi was free from them, and could finally slow down and collapse. I quickly started running a diagnostic, and Rin, who appeared at our sides, gasping, passed her the water bottle.

"You head back to Sensei," I told our teammate kindly, stroking her hair. "We'll wake up the dogs and bring them back. They've had enough exercise to last them a year, and so have you, okay, Toy-chan?" Toyuchi nodded shakily, and started back towards Tekuno-sensei. We waited until she was out of sight, and made sure we had a firm grip on their chains, before we started waking the dogs (and I dispelled what wolves were guarding them). By the time we finished the job, Toyuchi looked drained, and we all just wanted to go home.

"Mission… Completed. Lets go home, kids," Sensei murmured, wrapping an arm around the traumatized girls shoulders; we nodded and walked her home, before the three of us went off to our own homes for the night.

**1.8**

After yesterday, feeding the elderly seemed like a walk in the park. They told stories, sang songs, laughed at their own jokes. It was fun, and made Toyuchi feel better and relax from what was obviously a sleepless night. The only problem was when one of the _really_ old ladies tried to strip naked and streak the room, to the other old folks cheers of encouragement… ("Fight the man, Utako! Show 'em how its done!" and "If I were forty years younger…" and other, more disturbing things, were said when she did it) Otherwise, it was a calm, relaxing evening, and rather enjoyable.

"Mission Feed the Elderly: Complete!"

"I wouldn't mind doing that again."

"Me neither, Rin. Me neither…"

**1.9**

Babysitting for the Council Elders, on the other hand…

"I hate you!" Little five-year-old Ume screamed furiously, writhing in my grasp as I tried to put her in the bathtub. I winced as she punched me in the face. Tomi, her four-year-old brother, sat sucking his fist in the water, wide-eyed, as Rin calmly washed his brown hair. Ume _hated_ getting wet. Eight-year-old Suki had gotten washed earlier with much the same fight, only with Toyuchi, who'd come back to her old self in time to screech right back at the child and make her cry, which meant that Rin had taken over firmly, and I had had to scold my teammate about holding her temper. She'd apologized to the girl, who'd sulkingly apologized back, and there was a temporary truce over the promise of ice cream after dinner.

We had a schedule for the three brats that we had to keep. Lunch, then an hour nap, then two hours playing. Bath time, dinner, then bed. After that, we watched the house for an hour, until the Elders and the parents got home, and _then_ we could leave Once I got this midget _into_ the bath, then we could start dinner, which would, hopefully, be the easiest part…

Toyuchi burst into the room, wide-eyed.

"The monster is gone!" She blurted; I stared at her and sighed.

"Watch my midget," I told her sternly. "I'll go find yours." She nodded; looking shaken and worried, and I sniffed the air and took off trotting in the direction of Suki's scent. It didn't take me too long to find her, sitting on the roof of the back porch, glaring out, up at the sky. I sighed softly and sat down next to her, gnawing on a senbon.

"My teammate is a pain sometimes, but she means well enough," I told her quietly; Suki sniffed, and continued glaring. I scratched the back of my neck and waited.

"I hate her," she muttered; I nodded. "She won't let me go to the Academy to be a kunoichi." I nodded-whoa, wait, back up there. Who are we talking about now? "My Mommy," she said to my vaguely confused look.

"Ah," I said, nodding. "I don't know anything about them. I've never had one." She looked confused. "My Neesan raised me since I was a baby, and she never met my Kaasan, who was her aunt. And her parents died when she was little, so she didn't get to know them very well either." She looked down at her knees and bit her lip.

"I love my Mommy," She said quietly. "But she thinks being a shinobi is too hard for me. But it's what I _want_! More then anything in the _world_!" I nodded, and set my hand on her dark-brown hair, petting lightly.

"Have you told her that, without yelling and screaming and acting like a spoiled brat?" I asked kindly. "Because shinobi have to be careful about their tempers, most cases, or have teammates who cane work with them despite their tempers." She sniffled, rubbed her eyes, and nodded determinedly. We sat for a few more minutes, and then I led her inside. After dinner (and dessert), they munchkins went to bed without much fuss.

"Mission Baby-sit for the Elders: Complete," Tekuno murmured as we left; I nodded.

"I want chocolate."

"Amen."

**2.0**

"So all we do is escort these rice-sacks to this village, and we're done," I said as we walked next to the small cart, pulled by a mule. Tekuno-sensei nodded easily. "Are there bandits or something?" He shook his head. "A bridge out?" Head shake. "Plague and pestilence?" More bemused shake of the head. "Then _why_ can't they get their own damn rice?"

"Nara-syndrome," he replied simply; if that didn't shut me up, nothing else would have.

"Oh…"

Mission Run Errands for Neighboring Village: Complete.

**2.1**

"Hokage-sama, we're ready for a higher Ranked mission, now," I told him as Team Four sat quietly in his office. Puffing on his pipe, he eyed us, then nodded, a pleased look on his face.

"I can't help but say I'm impressed with you three," he told us honestly. "Fifteen D-Rank missions in a week and a half, all completed to the utter satisfaction of the clients, and quite a few specific requests just for the three of you now under your belt. You've gained quite the reputation!" We smiled, proud. "I have just the job for you, too. Kakashi and Team Seven went on an escort mission, C-Rank, which turned out to be a higher Rank then initially thought. They need back up and, until the Chunin Exams can weed out the Genin and free up some more Jounin, my hands are tied on just who I can send. I think your Team has the right mindset and skills to help out," he added, and handed Tekuno-sensei a scroll. "That's the mission-statement. Go prepared, understand, Tekuno-san?" Our sensei nodded seriously and took the scroll. With that, we left the office, and the three of us ran to our homes to pack up our things…

Okay, I packed _way _more senbons then probably necessary, and I restocked extra antidotes and poisons just in case, but _still_!

**2.2**

"It's very foggy…" I said, squinting out into the mist from the boat we had rented to get across. It was absurdly expensive, but we'd gotten it worked out alright (I'd threatened to paralyze the boatman's penis until he agreed to take us over, not that Tekuno-sensei knew _that_…). "Is it always this foggy? No wonder it's the Village Hidden in the Mist, where else would you hide it?" Toyuchi tried to smack me upside the back of the head, but I dodged her easily. "Whoa, is that the bridge?" A massive half-built construct loomed like a behemoth from the mist, and we stared up at it in silence. I froze, frowning, as I sensed Naruto's chakra up there, and almost immediately after a swirling, powerful maliciousness pressed down on us.

"What is that!" Toyuchi whispered; I growled and then pulled out my senbons.

"There's a fight going on up on the bridge!" I hissed. "Tekuno-sensei!" He nodded, grabbed us, and shunshin'd up there. We arrived in time to watch Kakashi summon his nin-dogs to pin a man with a massive sword in place.

"Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Mist," Tekuno hissed to us; I nodded, and signaled my team into their places. Rin went immediately to assist Pepto in protecting the old man that was their client, and Toyuchi and I went to help Naruto and Duckbutt in the circle of mirrors. As we got closer, I ignored Juu's attempts to goad me into using his powers to assist me in the fight. His Chakra tended to do wonky things to my magic (which I tended to only use to aid my stealth a little bit, i.e. silencing my heavy books, anti-theft on my weapons pouch, things like that). We left Sensei to whatever he would do, and kept towards our goal.

Naruto was talking with the enemy shinobi, the foxes chakra now gone, as if it had never been there. Suddenly he was running forward, fist swinging, and it looked like the girl (at least, it looked like a girl…) would let it hit, but then her eyes widened and she caught his fist just as we reached the edge of the ice.

"I'm sorry Naruto," She/he/it said, making a hand-sign. "I can't die yet!" and then shunshin'd away. I cursed, but the mirrors were down, and I ran to Naruto, touching his shoulder, before I left Toyuchi with him to make sure he didn't do anything stupid and ran to Duckbutt. Luckily I'm a senbon user as well as a medic-nin, and I recognize all the hits he took as non-lethal. I quickly removed all the needles, ignoring the blood he coughed up on my face, and calmly began to heal him, listening with half an ear as the girl/boy/it from before was killed, Zabuza was wounded, some idiot named Gato showed up, and then Zabuza killed _him_. I got ready to fight when his mob of thugs got ready to attack us… Only to return to healing Duckbutt when some little midget-kid brought his _own_ mob of pissed-off villagers on their asses and scared them away.

Then, of course, it started freaking _snowing_…

Evil snow.

**2.3**

"I don't see how that qualified for an A-Rank mission for us," I muttered as we headed back towards Konoha, Naruto waving back towards Inari and his village-friends as we walked. "I mean, we didn't really _do_ anything!"

"Oh, I don't know about that, Midori-chan," Kakashi said, reading his orange pervert book. "_You_ healed us up well enough so that we could leave earlier then we would have been able to otherwise." I huffed and rolled my eyes at that, embarrassed when my cheeks pinked because Toyuchi hugged me and began to sing 'For He's A Jolly Good Fellow' very loudly. I punched her in the arm with a scowl, and we continued on, ignoring Naruto's sniffles as he cried. He'd gotten close to that family, really close, and I couldn't blame him. He was a big softie, after all, and had no family of his own to cling to. He made his own where he went.

Smiling, I threw an arm around his shoulder, and hugged him lightly. Life was getting better, so far.

**2.4**

"Oh man, that cat _hates_ you!" Naruto laughed as I ran around him in circles, trying to stay away from Tora as the evil thing tried to catch me. It had been waiting for me at the city gates, hiding, and had attacked as soon as I had passed it. I cursed up a blue streak, pulled out my sealing scroll, shouted a warning to Toyuchi, and activated it, throwing the Catnip-stuffed purple doll away. The cat yowled and tore after it, pouncing on it without hesitation as I skidded to a stop with a sigh of relief.

"Kami, why won't he leave me alone!" I demanded of my laughing friends and teammates, before walking over to the luxuriating cat and picking him up, getting a growl for my efforts. I rolled my eyes and draped him over my shoulders while he gnawed on his chew toy, and we continued on through the gates. I smiled as Naruto ran forward and shouted 'I'm Back!' as loud as he could, and laughed when Toyuchi punched him in the back of the head.

"Looks like it's back to D-Rank missions for us," I told Tekuno-sensei as we walked towards Naruto's favorite Ramen place (whose name _always_ escapes me, but that could be because ramen isn't my all time favorite food…) where Kakashi-sensei promised to pay for us (after all, if it wasn't for me, he'd still be lying on his back in Mist, barely able to move).

"Don't worry, Midori-chan," he said, ruffling the hair on my head. "You guys have a rep, now, for these missions. You'll be asked for, for certain missions and specific assignments. That's a pretty important kind of thing, you know! My Team when _I_ was a Genin didn't have that until our second year, and then we didn't have as many as you three do! So, don't worry! You'll have a good long list of missions waiting for you!" I rolled my eyes, and dodged him when he tried to ruffle my hair, huffing. I didn't like it when anyone but Anko messed with my hair, because only she messed it enough to get it to fall in a stylish way… Mostly because it was just like her own and so she was used to it.

**2.5**

"So how was your first non-D-Rank mission?" Anko asked as she went over her paperwork in her office. I sighed and flopped down next to her desk on the floor, and she tossed a chocolate bar at my head. I caught it and bit into it with a hum of happiness.

"It was an A-Rank, though nothing really happened to _my_ Team," I told her, leaning against her thigh idly. "Uchiha almost got himself killed, but I healed him up, as well as Kakashi-sensei and Naruto-nii when they got Chakra exhaustion and minor wounds. No one on my Team even had to fight, though we got close. Only the enemy died, you'll know that," she nodded easily. The Torture and Interrogation Squad got information from the corpses of Missing-nin that were retrieved from our missions too, we'd discovered, so of course Anko knew.

"Other then that, it was pretty boring. A lot of walking, little bit of a scene change, not much otherwise," I told her, and shrugged; she smiled wickedly, and ruffled my hair gently.

"And that kitty waiting at the gates for you?" she teased; I growled at her, and took a vicious bite from my chocolate, scowling darkly at it as she laughed. "He was skulking around after me the day after you left. Would _not_ leave me alone, and kept giving the Genin's assigned to find him the slip. I think he's overly fond of you, otouto," she said, amused; I huffed, and broodingly ate my chocolate, mentally giving the cat to Juu as a chew toy.

Evil Cat…

**2.6**

"Reporting ready for missions, Hokage-sama!" Toyuchi said cheerfully the next day as we met at the Hokages office; he blinked at us from around his pipe.

"Tora's missing again," he said; I produced the cat from within a sealed scroll, the cat ignoring everyone in order to roll around and gnaw on his doll. Hokage blinked blankly for a moment, and then began to laugh, while I shrugged sheepishly at my friends incredulous stares.

"What?" I asked, sniffing. "He tried to attack me in my sleep!" I smiled, though, and shook my head, as my favorite words were laughed out of my Sensei's mouth.

"Mission Complete!"

**A/N:** And This chapter is complete! _**R&R!**_


	3. Confucius

**A/N:** My awesomeness is unquestionable. Be forewarned of its power…

It was pointed out that Tekuno-sensei is a vague character without any real form, so I'm going to try and remedy that, here! I hope y'all enjoy it…

Did you know that writing more then 10,000 words is hard, especially when you find the perfect point to end the chapter, and its just short of the mark? That's why I had to ad the little **0.0. 0.1, 0.2** things in there, so that I could separate my points better, and have mini-time-skips. Anyways,

_**R&R!**_

MINIMUM NUMBER OF WORDS :

10,000

NUMBER OF WORDS – A/N:

10,767

**Jinchuuriki**

**Two**

"_By __three __methods __we __may __learn __wisdom: __First, __by __reflection, __which __is __noblest; __second, __by __imitation, __which __is __easiest; __and __third __by __experience, __which __is __the __bitterest.__" ~ __Confucius_

**0.0**

"Good morning, Team Four!" Tekuno-sensei greeted us after he shunshin'd onto the library roof. It was our unofficial meeting place every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which were the days we just trained as a Team now since taking that A-Rank mission ( which I _still_ didn't think we should have been given an A-Rank _on_, but, meh, can't always get what you want). Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were Mission days, and Sundays were days off.

"Hey, Sensei?" I asked curiously; he nodded encouragingly, smiling as he scratched his shaggy hair. "I was kind of wondering if you could teach us shunshin…" Toyuchi and Rin sat up, eyes brightening (Toyuchi grinned, too, but Rin merely looked interested). Tekuno-sensei scratched his head, laughed a little, and then looked determined.

"Sure," He declared. "Why the hell not?" Toyuchi and I cheered and gave one another a high-five. Rin smiled faintly, and then put her book away. "You have to learn some Chakra exercises first, though," he warned. "For you two," he pointed at Rin and Toyuchi, who looked less then thrilled now, "I know this is going to get infuriating and frustrating, and you might want to quit. All I can say is that performing ninjutsu after learning these exercises, is a hell of a lot easier then it was before." We nodded, and followed him off the roof and into our usual small clearing.

"Our first exercise is going to be Tree-walking," he said, and proceeded to walk straight up a tree without using his hands.

"Whoa!" I blurted, eyes wide. "Gravity defying ninja-ness!" Tekuno-sensei sweat-dropped, and Toyuchi smacked me upside the head, as he stood upside down on a branch.

"No, Midori-chan, this _isn't_ gravity defiance," he teased warmly. "This is a steady, certain amount of Chakra pushed through the bottom of the feet and into the tree, that allows you to stick to them. I'll tell you now, for those like you and me, girls," he said, indicating the two who had poorest Chakra control, "this is difficult, though easier then the next exercise. This takes a while to get the hang of, and with our schedule, you'll be doing a lot of at-home, on-your-own studying, okay?" They nodded determinedly, while I just examined him with narrowed eyes as he walked back down the tree. "If you do this enough times, and right, you'll be able to hold a battle on a parallel surface, without even concentrating on your Chakra." We nodded, and I was frankly fascinated.

Gravity defying ninja-ness indeed…

"Okay, lets get to work," he said, and handed us each a kunai. "Use these to mark your progress up the tree, okay? A bit of advice," he added, smiling easily. "Too much Chakra repels you from the tree, but too little, and you don't stick at all. Try and find the right amount, even, okay?" We nodded, and ran off towards the three nearest trees. I eyed my tree, and pursed my lips, letting the sound of Toyuchi already cursing as she fell drone out into background noise. This is all about concentration and being able to focus your Chakra to the right level…

Walking forward, I simply walked straight up the tree, all the way to the top, and cut the highest point, before walking slowly down. Huh. It's harder walking down a tree then up it. To walk up it, you have to lean forward, to reduce the pull of gravity at your back. To walk down it, the gravity is steadily getting stronger, and pulling at your front, so you have to lean _back_, and try to fight the instinct to lean forward and pick up speed, rushing to you squishy doom. It's actually kind of interesting when you think about it, because either way, if you lean too far in either direction, your feet shift oddly, you loose your balance, and you risk falling to your death.

By the time I reached the bottom again, I was pretty sure I'd gained a brand new respect for heights and gravity as a whole, and grinned at Tekuno-sensei, who snorted.

"Show-off," Toyuchi declared. She'd made it a total five feet up the tree, while Rin had silently made it fifteen. They were progressing, though, so it was all-good.

"Think of it as your machete," I suggested to her. "Your feet are your hands, your Chakra the blade, and the tree is the sheath. Too much force, the blade pops back out. Too little, and it doesn't go all the way in. Either way, your hand is a steady, constant weight on it, and you have to factor the weight of your arm or, in this case, your body." She pursed her lips, eyes thoughtful, and turned her attention to the tree. This time, when she ran, she only made it six feet, but it was a foot higher then her five other slashes, and the gap between them was noticeable. I grinned at her. "See? It's helping already! Practice with it thinking about it like that, and it'll work better." Toyuchi grinned, panting lightly, and gave me a pleased thumbs up, before returning to her work. I padded over and encouraged Rin by asking her if she'd read any books on the subject before. When she said no, I suggested that, before she went home today, she should check one out, and maybe one on focusing ones Chakra, and get back to us on what it said. She smiled faintly and nodded, and got back to work, running gracefully up the tree, then jumping back down, her next mark six-inches higher then the last. I nodded, pleased that I'd helped my teammates improve, and returned to Tekuno-sensei's side.

"So what's the next exercise?" I asked curiously; he scratched the back of his neck, shook his head watching the girls, and gestured at me to follow him, yelling at the girls that he'd be back in a minute. Then I followed him on a ten-minute walk to a small stream, were he introduced me to Water-walking.

"It's harder then Tree-walking," he informed me honestly, looking serious. "Even _you_ might have problems with it!" He smiled, and I grinned, but nodded all the same. Over-confidence and arrogance are some of the first-things (besides stupidity) that get shinobi killed. So I took off my boots, and unwound my leg-bandages up to my knees, tucking them into my pockets.

"Remember," Tekuno-sensei told me as I started concentrating my Chakra, "the water moves, when the tree didn't. The Chakra waves will be different as well." I nodded, and took two steps forward…

And promptly sank halfway up my calves. Sighing, I got out, and shook my head.

"I know you told me, and I know I _knew_ it would be harder," I told Sensei with a sheepish look, shaking water from my feet. It was kind of chilly, but not too bad. "But there's thinking, and then there's it _happening_. I was still kinda expecting to breeze right through it." I pouted, and Tekuno-sensei laughed warmly, patting me firmly on the shoulder and making me smile.

"You just got to keep trying is all, Midori-chan," he told me, and then glanced over his shoulder. "I'm going to go see how the girls are doing, okay? I'll come back and check on you in ten minutes, tops." I nodded, and went back to practicing. By the time he came back, I'd gotten it to where I only sank to the tops of my ankles, bottoms of my calves.

"Well done so far!" he encouraged; I grinned at him, proud of myself. This actually _was_ a lot harder then I thought it would be. I had to push Chakra consistently out through my feet, but it had to move in waves that could go out against the liquid surface of the water, and since the stream was in _motion_, as opposed to being a calm surface like, say, a lake, then the surface was constantly shifting, so the waves of Chakra had to consistently and constantly shift as well. If I didn't already have incredibly concentrated Chakra thanks to my years of practice with magic (which is a _lot_ harder to mould and control), then I'd probably still have been Tree-climbing with the girls, though maybe farther ahead, and if not, then _this_ would have taken me _weeks_.

**0.1**

After half and hour (with Tekuno-sensei going between me and the girls at fifteen minute intervals)I had the Water-walking down, but had a nasty headache I had to heal myself of. Groaning, I flopped down on my back on the shore, and stared up at the clouds, enjoying the quiet. I had five more minutes until Sensei returned from checking on my teammates (who, I heard, had made great progress since I left them, but were still no where near ready to begin the Water-walking exercise). A hawk flew by overhead, towards where the girls were, and I wondered, vaguely, if it was a messenger hawk or a wild one. Either way, I hoped they saw it.

It was pretty…

Sensing strange Chakra, I frowned and sat up, and blinked at the three teens walking my way. They wore the headbands for Sunagakure, the Village Hidden in the Sand, of the Land of Wind (since Konoha is in the Land of Fire, a different country, they were a _long_ way from home.). I sat up and cocked my head, eying them in curiosity. One was a pretty blond girl with four spiky pigtails and a massive fan, with her headband around her neck. Another was a puppeteer, by the looks of him, in a black suit that made it look like he had cat ears, with purple war paint on his face. The third…

Was a red-haired, green-eyed Jinchuuriki, with the kanji for Love on his forehead, and black circles around his eyes, like he never got any sleep. He kind of creeped me out, but it was the same way Anko creeped me out when she got horny after killing/torturing someone, so I could ignore it. He had a heavy-looking gourd on his back as well, and I wondered what was in it… I hopped on my feet, and offered them a wave and a smile.

Sometimes it paid to be friendly first.

"Hello there," I said, and stepped idly out of the way as the redhead walked by. "Talkative fellow, aren't you? Eh, oh well." I sniffed the air. "Tanuki, isn't it?" I asked curiously; he froze and slowly turned, staring at me, blank-faced. I nodded. "Yup, smells tanuki. Which means…" I tapped my chin, frowning, and then snapped my fingers. "Shukaku, the Sleepless One! Ah, I didn't even need my _own_ furry little problem to figure it out!" I grinned at him easily, and then dodged when sand came shooting my way, moving like a living entity and fast as a snake (which I'm still rather fond of, thanks to Anko's obsession with them). "Whoa, whoa, whoa! No killing me! I'm just trying to be friendly, dammit, who kills someone for that now-a-days? I mean, sure, it can be annoying, but come _on_!" I ducked behind his teammates but didn't get to close, wrinkling my nose at him. "You'd think he'd be a little more welcoming to one of his own kind," I told them, sniffing. "Not that my demon is from the same place as his is, as mine is an Outer Lands demon and his is a Hidden Countries demon, but _still_… Unless Shukaku is trying to have a pissing contest with me?" I asked, cocking my head, frowning. "If so, I'll have to decline. If I give Juu any sort of leeway, he'll kill willy-nilly and get me blamed for it, so, yeah, sorry old boy, gonna have to say no!" I smiled, and jumped on the stream to walk around and get closer to the redhead.

"Don't kill him, Gaara," Puppeteer said carefully. "He's just an idiot, just like that annoying blond kid." I brightened, despite having just been insulted by someone wearing _make-up._..and _badly._

"Oh, you met Naruto-nii! He must not have made a good impression on you at all, but he tends to talk a lot so that's not all that surprising," I shook my head. "Well, anyways, let me welcome you to Konohagakure! My name is Mitarashi Midori, but everyone calls me Midori-chan, so you can as well," I told them, smiling; the blond snorted and I smiled back. "Yes, I blame my sister, she got me used to it and now being called –_kun_ just doesn't sit right. Makes me feel _weird_." I wrinkled my nose and shrugged.

"I'm Temari," she told me, then gestured, "my brothers, Kankuro and Gaara, of Suna." I smiled and gave them a polite bow, then paused, staring at the sand that was wrapped around my feet. I frowned, feeling the Charkas that pulsed from it, and shivered.

"Your mother loves you very much, you know," I said suddenly, quietly, looking at the sand. There were two sharp intakes of breath, and I raised my eyes to meet Gaara's slightly wide gaze with calm understanding. "My mother died in front of me, standing in front of the assassin who'd come to end my life. Her dying screams and begging for mercy, and for my life, are the last things I remember of her." I smiled as I said it, though, then grinned and tapped my eyes. "I got her eyes!" I chirruped, and then looked over as I sensed Toyuchi and Rin approaching, looking tired and hanging off one another. "Hey you two! Need a pick-me up?" They nodded, smiling hesitantly at the Suna-shinobi, and I padded over to heal their bumps and bruises, and restore some of their Chakra. I passed each a bottle of water and took the bottles back when they were finished. "Guys, these are Gaara, Kankuro, and the lovely Temari, from Sunagakure. Suna-ninjas, these are my teammates, Yotosuichi Rin and Nekotayu Toyuchi. They're working on their Tree-climbing exercises…By the way…?" I gave them a questioning look, and Toyuchi gave me a thumbs up, looking much better as I continued to restore their Chakra. Rin merely nodded. "Fantastic! Water-walking took me forty minutes to get, though, so you guys are going to have a tougher time on that." Toyuchi groaned, but I flicked her in the forehead. "Remember, it's–"

"Just another weapon, I _know_, Midori-chan!" She whined, huffing at me with a roll of her eyes. I smiled.

"That idea _helps_, though, so don't you condescend my advice!" They shook their heads, told me that Tekuno-sensei had gotten a message via hawk and shunshin'd somewhere, and left to return to their training, waving idly at my Suna guests and I as they did. I returned my attention to the Suna shinobi, walked over, and silently took Kankuro's wrist, healing the bruise that had formed on it from something hitting it. He probably got it in a recent spar or something. Go for the hands of a puppet user, and you'll cripple his main use of attack when you take them out.

It's what I would have done, after all.

"There," I told him with satisfaction. "It was bothering me. It would have gotten all stiff and your hand would have been slow, something that's very bad for most shinobi, but horrible for you puppet users, eh?" I smiled at him easily. "If you guys are going to be in town for a while, I suggest you try some of the Dango and Ramen restaurants. They're very good. Though, I prefer chocolate myself, no matter what Neesan or Naruto-nii says." I smiled and shrugged, and soon they left, Temari promising to check up on me sometime, which was a little awesome but weird at the same time, but _still_. Gaara gave me a death-glare after her comment, though, and the feeling of evil, overprotective brother-ness was exponential.

I think it would totally be worth it, though… Thank the Gods I'm bisexual, and so get the best from both worlds.

**0.3**

"So," I said as we sat eating ramen, my team and Naruto-nii's team, and our two Sensei's footing the bill together. "We're signed up for the Chunin Exams, which is why my new friends the Suna-nin are here?"

"You met those creepazoids too?" Naruto asked after swallowing his huge mouthful of scalding-hot ramen. Rin was staring at him in fascination, her own, untouched bowl sitting in front of her while he started his tenth. I nodded, and glared lightly.

"Hey, they're not that bad! I mean, Gaara tried to kill me, but we're good now," I shrugged, and started eating my second bowl as everyone stared at me.

"You just sounded so… Nonchalant, about it," Pepto murmured; I swallowed my bite and shrugged.

"We're shinobi," I said cheerfully, spearing a piece of chicken with my chopstick, and pointing in her direction with it. "If we're not trying to kill someone else, then someone else is generally trying to kill us… Or capture us so they can torture the Villages secrets from us, and _then_ dispose of our remains, probably in pieces all over the place, or as ashes… Hey, why did you stop eating?" I asked her, innocently; I yelped when Naruto kicked me under the table, and we glared playfully at one another while he finished his tenth bowl and started on his eleventh, which Ayame immediately placed before him, smiling.

"Er, right," Tekuno-sensei said, clearing his throat to hide his laughter. "Anyways, yes. You're signed up for the Chunin exams now." He handed out application forms to everyone on both teams, and Kakashi-sensei took up the explanation.

"You needn't fill those out if you don't want to," he told us, turning the page of his book. (How the hell does he eat with his mask on? …Must be some form of ninja-esque magic, specialized for him only… Yeah, that works. I could totally see that working, like some freaky Kekkei Genkai or something…). "If you do, report to room three hundred and one at the school by four o'clock tomorrow afternoon." We waited for more, and he blinked, looked up, and gave an upside-down eye smile. "That's all!" Tekuno-sensei rolled his eyes, and turned to face us, face serious.

"I want you guys to know that I don't mind if you don't want to do this yet," he told Team Four seriously; I smacked Toyuchi upside the head as she opened her mouth to say something, probably rash, about being totally up for it. "The Chunin Exams are no laughing matter. Genin from every Hidden Village will be coming to compete for the hopes of advancing on to become a Chunin, yourselves included, and not all of them will be prepared to just let you drop out of a fight." His eyes were hard and deadly serious. "Some will insist on fighting, until you either knock them out, or they kill you, or you kill them." Silence reigned, and then I frowned.

"But you think we have a good shot anyways," I told him, calmly. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have stepped forward and put our names on the list for Konoha Genin applicants." Tekuno-sensei nodded, and smiled slightly.

"Midori as a leader, Rin as the fountain of information, and Toyuchi as the brash force of personality and strength," he said, grinning. "You make a good team, and work together well on missions and in the field, even if you've mostly done D-Ranks with one exception. And your too damn stubborn for your own good sometimes, too," he added; we grinned cheekily at him, and I drank the last of my broth and stood, stretching.

"Well," I said, popping my neck, "Since tomorrow's out for missions, you guys wanna meet up early for Team Training again?" Toyuchi, Rin, and Tekuno-sensei nodded, and I smiled. "Then I'm gonna go home and steal some of my Neesan's dango before I shower and hit the sack." I yawned. "Water-walking takes more concentration then I thought!"

"That reminds me!" Tekuno blurted, straightening. "Did you get it?" I nodded, and he smacked me on the back. "Good on you, Midori-chan! We'll see how you do tomorrow with a little spar between you and me, and then I'll start working on the rest of it, alright?" I grinned at him and nodded, waved goodbye to everyone, and ran home, eager to steal some of Anko's dango, just like I said I would, and tell her about the interesting day I'd had.

She'd probably laugh, and throw a kunai at my balls.

Ah, sisterly affection, thy name is RUN AWAY!

**0.4**

"If you even _try_ to back off at any point where it isn't immediate death to you during the Exam, I will use all my torture techniques on you," Anko told me simply, smilingly, as we sat on her office floor behind her desk and ate dango, I hummed, nodded, and took another bite. "And I'll ground you from chocolate for a year." I choked, and glared at her.

"Harsh," I said; all she did was smile, and eat her dango.

Evil older siblings. No wonder Ron hated them. And he had _five_ of them...

Shudder.

**0.5**

"Okay, so you have standing and walking on the water down," Tekuno-sensei said. "But can you do it under duress?" I blinked, and was soon trying to keep on top of the water while the cheeky bastard threw _kunai_ and _shuriken_ at me! Yelping when one of my feet sank halfway, I over-balanced, tried to pull back too hard, and fell on my ass in the water. I groaned, soaked, got up and sloshed out, scowling as he laughed his ass off on the shore.

"Jerk," I muttered, pouting. "My bandages are _soaked_!" I complained mournfully, examining the soggy gauze. I shook my head, took off my already soaked shoes so that they didn't get any worse, and got back on the water. "This is why over-confidence gets so many ninjas killed," I muttered, shaking my head and flinging a couple of water droplets away. "If he'd been an enemy, I'd be dead or captured. Think, Mitarashi, _think_." I sighed, concentrated, and tried to keep a steady part of my mind constantly on my feet while I once again dodged projectiles… Though, when he threw a _spear_ I lost it completely out of sheer shock.

"Do you actually _use_ that?" I asked, picking it up, fascinated; he grinned and walked over to me to take it back, gathering up all of his weapons.

"I can use every weapon I have, which is quite a lot," he told me proudly. "I prefer the crossbow, though, with explosive tags attached on the ends of the kunai or bolts or whatever I'm shooting that day." He grinned brightly. "I _love_ explosions! That should have been another of my '_likes'_ things when we were introducing ourselves! Boom!" He laughed uproarishly, and I chuckled, shaking my head, amused. After five more tries at the 'dodge the weapon' game, I was able to stay on water, run around, jump, and roll to dodge all the projectiles. Then the _real_ spar began.

Tekuno-sensei and I stood on the water, ten feet between us, and, at his signal, immediately began throwing things at one another… Only, I didn't see that his kunai had wires attached, so when he pulled on them, my arms were trapped tight to my sides, as I had dodged each one and they were now embedded in the ground. I stayed standing on the water, though, and he walking over and poked me in the forehead.

"Dead," he told me, and I obligingly let my feet sink to the stream floor, smiling up at him. He helped me find my senbon (which was nice of him, since they were so damn hard to find in the moving water, with us walking on it, even so we didn't stir any mud.)

"Good job, though," he told me kindly. "Close combat just isn't your strong suit." I smiles and shrugged, nodding. It really wasn't… Unless you put a broadsword in my hand. _Then_…Well. It was almost like a totally different person was standing there. Thankfully, no one had tried to get me to train with a weapon other then my senbon and poisons yet, so I was safe from _that_ little secret getting out. "Okay, now, the shunshin." Oh, yeah, whole point for these exercises. I focused on Sensei.

"Shunshin isn't really just teleporting, like some people think it is," he said, settling on a rock to explain while I stood in front of him (my clothes were still wet, and I did _not_ want dirt sticking to them. I had to wash them myself, you know, and I did so every day. The fewer the stains, the happier I'd be.). "It's actually the user using Chakra to move really fast, so fast the eye can almost never track them, and only in straight directions. You can zigzag, and make sharp turns and jumps, but you can never curve. And I say the eye can _almost_ never track, because the Uchiha's Sharingan and some other Kekkei Genkai _can_ track it, and also some of the more alert, highly trained Jounin, like the ANBU and some Tokubetsu Jounin can track it as well, with other senses if not their eyes." I nodded, understanding. It would be like the snitch, then, compared to a Bludger. One is fast but still visible, while the other is only visible when it moves to those with sensitive eyes.

"Now, to use shunshin, you have to have a steady amount of Chakra throughout your entire body, with a fraction more in you're legs, and concentrate on speed," he said, before standing and using it to appear next to me. "It helps if you use the Boar hand-sign when beginning," he added **(A/N:** No clue if that's the real hand-sign**)**. "Have a destination in mind as well, and watch out for the tunnel-vision, it's a doozy," he warned, and stepped back. Focusing my Chakra, I did as recommended, and figured it was kind of like Apparation. Focusing on top of the rock, where Sensei had been, I made the Boar sign, concentrated and…

In a blur of all my peripheral vision, slammed into the rock.

Groaning, I gingerly got back up, wincing, and carefully healed my bruises and cracked rib while Sensei hurried over to check on me.

"Er, maybe try in a straight line, first, Midori-chan," he offered, laughing hesitantly. I gave him a sheepish look, concentrated on the bank fifteen feet away, and repeated the hand-sign, prepared now for the tunnel vision. It was still off-putting, and I got dizzy as all hell when I stopped, and stumbled, but I didn't fall, and I straightened with a grin and a thumbs up to Tekuno-sensei, who clapped with a hoot, grinning.

Some more practice, and I'd have the shunshin down. Beat _that_, Apparation and Portkeys and Floo! I _didn't_ fall on my arse with _this_ transportation!

**0.6**

Four o'clock rolled around, and the girls and I found ourselves walking companionably into the school.

"This brings back memories," I muttered as we walked up to the third floor, where a bunch of people already were. When we were about to stop, though, Rin kept going. "Rin?" I asked, confused; she glanced back, blinking.

"Genjutsu," she replied simply, pointing at the sign. I looked again, tilted my head and squinted, and made an 'ah' sound. The numbers said two hundred and one, _not_ three hundred and one like I originally thought. It was a well-made genjutsu, though. I grabbed Toyuchi's hand and pulled her along after our other teammate, waving at Naruto as we went. After that, we easily made it to the third floor, (and to the and to the _right_ three hundred and one room) we stepped into a room filled to the brim with Genin from every Hidden Village everywhere. I grinned at the occupants cheerfully when dozens turned to glance at us, and we idled away from the door to slide through the crowd and make ourselves smaller targets for ire. When Naruto and the rest of Team Seven entered, they made a small scene dealing with Ino from Team Ten, who was as obsessed with Duckbutt as Pepto, and her rival for his (as yet unseen) affections. Shino's Team Eight went over to greet them after that, before an older Konoha Genin I didn't recognize idled over to start a conversation, and show off his Shinobi Skill Cards. Of course, then Naruto had his little outburst, and I could have beat him to unconsciousness for his idiocy if I didn't know it was just an act to make him feel more confident. He can fight better when there's Killing Intent involved, after all. A fight without it, and he's in the dark about how he's supposed to react, most of the time, unless it's a pissing contest.

It's both a good thing to cultivate, but a bad weakness.

Of course, that made a group act out, and I threw senbon without thinking, in defense for the Skill Card Kid. It hit the Genin from the attacking Team that they used as a distraction, and then my next hit the one with holes on the metal gauntlet on his arms. They were both unconscious within seconds, but the damage was done, and the silver-haired card-holder's eardrums were burst, his glasses shattered, and he was already kneeling on the ground and vomiting his guts up. Must have used some form of sound wave through those holey gauntlets (Heh, 'holy gauntlets', heh-heh.) of his… Cursing softly, I padded forward , hands glowing with healing chakra, and pressed them against his ears.

"You alright?" I asked once I fixed the damage; he nodded, and I nodded back, retrieving my senbons from the downed ninja. I fed them the antidote, and walked back to my Team, who now stood by Naruto and his friends. I crossed my arms, glancing back, and frowned.

"Poor sportsmanship, Naruto-nii," I informed my friend, shaking my head, and thwacked him gently upside the head. "You're supposed to be a shinobi, so act like one. Shouting ridiculous things to build your confidence and psyche your enemies out is fun, sure, but not something you use often in combat. So don't do so again, understand?" He scowled, rubbed his head, but nodded silently, getting a surprised look from the other Genin. I nodded back seriously, and then turned to the rising shinobi I'd downed. Their headbands had a musical note on them, signifying Otogakure, a relatively new village. And they did _not_ look happy that I had gotten the jump on them, especially when they saw how much younger then them I was.

"You three ought to know better as well," I accused them. "Getting riled by the shouting of a rookie. Some disciplined shinobi they have in Sound these days." The one with the holey gauntlets (snicker.) narrowed his single, visible eye, and I tilted his head. "And if you're thinking I'm being hypocritical, as Naruto was _very_ undisciplined in his actions just a few moments ago, then you should know that his actions have now been accounted for, and he'll not do that again. As someone he listens to, I've taken responsibility for his actions before, and do so now, and so have already reprimanded him for those actions. He'll not do so again. _You, _on the other hand…" I was stopped from further dressing down, however, from a smoke bomb going off, and Ibiki-oniisama's strong voice ringing out from within it.

"Would everybody please just _shut up_?"

That's my Oniisama!

**0.7**

Apparently, it wasn't a smoke bomb, but Ibiki-oniisama using shunshin to move about two-dozen Leaf Jounin into the room at the same time. I was _definitely_ impressed. I'd only gotten to the point where I could move Toyuchi and Rin _very_ short distances, and those made me stumble, dizzy, and nauseous. I nearly bowed to his mighty use of the shunshin… Before I realized he was scowling, and shut my thoughts up to listen.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting," Ibiki said, scowl shifting to a small smirk. "My name is Morino Ibiki. I'm the proctor and chief examiner for the first part of the test." I couldn't help myself. I waved, grinning.

"Hello, Ibiki-oniisama!" I greeted; he gave me a narrow-eyed look, and I shrugged, and gave him a polite bow. "I hope that this test will be interesting, sir," I continued in a much more respectful tone, one that I used when Anko decided that Ibiki should handle my Punishment Training, which was twice as hard and cruel as hers was. It didn't happen too often, but when it did, I could barely move, even with my faster healing due to my magic and Juu. With a satisfied glint in his dark eyes, he glared out at the crowd of intimidated Genin, radiating a small amount of Killer Intent, and jabbed his finger at them all.

"You… The kids from Otogakure! You can't carry on any way you please when the Exam's about to start! …Or do you _want_ to be disqualified?" He tilted his head, eyes narrowing, and the Oto kids winced slightly under the full stare of the mighty Ibiki.

"Sorry, sir…" Gauntlets said, trying for sincere and sounding more like he was forcing the words out through gritted teeth. "It's our first Exam, and we got a little carried away." Ibiki tilted his head down so that his headband shadowed his eyes, and stared at them broodingly.

"Is that so?" He tilted his shadowed eyes around the room. "Then it's high time someone laid down a few ground rules. From this point forward, there will be no more fighting without express permission of the Examining Officer… And even if that permission is granted, anything that endangers another applicant's life is strictly forbidden. Any of you little piglets who _break_ this rule are _out_. Disqualified. _No Second Chances._" His eyes spoke as if it were a death sentence, not one that simply meant you were going to go home early and have to keep doing D-Rank… Well, I guess to _some_ that _would_ be a death sentence… "Got that?" Everyone nodded in unison, because you do _not_ fuck with Ibiki-oniisama when he's in this kind of mood.

"So this is a test for little girly men?" On of the Oto kids, the one they used as a distraction that I knocked out, said with a smirk. The Jounin behind Ibiki all sneered or smirked at him as one.

"As you wish," Ibiki said, ignoring him, it seemed. "The first part of the Exam is about to commence. Turn in your written applications, take one of these seating assignment cards… and report directly to the seat indicated." He held up a small stack of cards with large black numbers on them. "When everyone's seated, we'll pass out the written part of the test." I blinked, confused.

"A-a _paper_ _test_!" Naruto blurted loudly, though he wasn't the _only_ outburst. They were all ignored, though, and my Team just shrugged, turned in our applications, and went to our seats in random places of the room. Luckily, I could still diagonally see Rin, so my plan would work wonderfully.

I'm an epic fail on most paper tests, when left to them by myself. But I'm an excellent cheat!

Ibiki started writing on the chalk bored without looking at it (which, lets face it, was pretty cool, since his hand writing is still very neat and precise _despite_ his apparent inattention).

"There are a few big rules that pertain to the first test. I'll write them on the blackboard and explain them all, but I'm _not_ taking questions, so listen carefully. I will say this only _once_." I nodded, and leaned forward on my desk slightly, eyes focused. "Rule Number One! Each one of you starts out here with ten points. The test has ten questions, each worth one point. For each question you get wrong, we subtract a point from you. Get all ten right, and you retain the points you have. But it, for example, you answer three questions _wrong_, we subtract a point for each incorrect answer. So, instead of ten points, you now have seven. Are you with me so far, kiddies?" We nodded. "Good."

"Rule Number Two… This written test is still an Exam event. Passing or failing will be determined by the sum of the points held by all _three_ members of each cell. The object is for each Team to have as few deductions as possible from its joint thirty-point total." Pepto's forehead smacked the desk, before shooting back up into the air, along with a hand (I was abruptly reminded of Hermione, which was disturbing, honestly).

"W-wait a second!" She cried. "The whole concept of the starting points and the deduction is hard enough to follow (It is?)…But what is this 'Team Total' you're talking about?" He said no questions, you idiot! BAKA!

"Did you _not_ hear the part about 'no questions'? (See?) We have our reasons. Shut up and listen. You might learn something. This next bit is crucial." How she could think this was hard to understand, I have no idea. Everyone has ten points they can make. Each Team has three people. All together, each Team can make thirty points. Few points lost, better chance for the Team to move forward. That's all it is! Jeesh. Oops, Ibiki-oniisama is talking again…

"Rule Number Three. If, during the course of the exam, a candidate does _anything_ out of the ordinary…in other words, anything that leads the proctors to determine that he or she has cheated… We subtract two points from each member of the cheaters Team." Sakura and some others gasped in understanding, and I smiled slightly. _So, this is to see who is the best cheat, eh? Well, I guess it's a good thing I've never been caught, huh?_ I mentally rubbed my hands together and cackled, to Juu's annoyed amusement.

"Exactly!" Ibiki said in reaction to the gasps. "In all probability, some of you will run through your entire allowance of points during the test. If so, you _will_ be failed, and asked to leave."

I'll be looking over your shoulders when you least expect it," one of the Jounin sitting to the side said, smirking, and I grinned at him, recognizing him from the Torture and Information Squad. I don't remember his name, but his _face_… _That_ I remembered.

"If you let the proctors catch you cheating, you'll bring yourself and your friends down!" Ibiki said _let_, did anyone else catch that? "If you aspire to become a Chunin… If you want to be the best shinobi you can be… Then you'd better start acting like you already are!" Wow. Ibiki-oniisama can sure give a good speech.

"One more thing. If any individual loses all ten of his or her points, that persons entire Cell, regardless of how the other two members do… Will be _disqualified_!" I winced when I felt the minor Killing Intent from Pepto towards Naruto, who had a dark cloud over his head. Surprisingly, Duckbutt didn't have any. Either he had _some_ confidence in Naruto, or he knew something that I didn't…

Or he just thought that Naruto wasn't worth the K. I…

**0.8**

"You have one hour," Ibiki said after the tests were passed out. Starting… **Now**!" Immediately, I glanced through the questions. _Question Number 1: Decode the following cipher and summarize the meaning._ Followed by a whole bunch of dots and squiggles. I Stared, then easily answered _that_ one. Hey, I grew _up_ around _this_ stuff. It was easier then _some_ of the questions, thanks to Anko's early-life training (Conditioning, maybe… Hey, I think she wants me to work on the Squad with her! That would be kind of neat… But I still want to be an interrogating ANBU who dies by chocolate.)

When I hit two, I skipped it, because I honestly did _not_ know a single one other then the first. Ten wouldn't be given until forty-five minutes after the Exam started, so I'd have to wait until then. Lifting my head slightly, I cut my eyes sideway so that I could stare at Rin's head as she busily scribbled answers, already halfway down the page. Dulling my eyes so that everything else went out of focus _but_ my Teammate, I slid carefully into her mind.

Hey, I may be a total monkey when it comes to Occulemency, but Legilimency is my shit, okay? I can do it _without_ eye contact, so kiss my ass! …I just can't pronounce or spell it right, but who knows? No one, that's who!

Taking the answers from her mind was easy, as no one really had protection from this sort of art. It wasn't Chakra, which some people had mind-protection for, and so no one had protection from _this_. It was magic. I just had to be careful with it, because, thanks to Juu being from the Outer Lands, where magic is found, he can try and manipulate it. I did _not_ want to turn my Teammate into a catatonic vegetable, thank you very much!

Once I had all of the answers written, I decided to be nice, and slid the answers carefully _into_ Toyuchi's mind, as it looked like she was seriously struggling. Hey, the test was to see how well we could cheat. It didn't mean we couldn't cheat to _help_ our _Team_! Besides, now she looked so proud of herself. She needed the confidence boost. I pretended to be bored, and flipped my paper over to the back at the same time that Rin did and, five minutes later, Toyuchi did the same, grinning like the cat that got the cream… Oh, shit, if she could read minds, I'd be dog food right now. Luckily, she can't, so I sighed in relief and left it at that.

I was tempted to help Naruto. I mean, he's my best friend! But… We're shinobi. This is a test to test our skills at information gathering, and he needs to stand on his own two feet for it. Even if he failed utterly, it didn't mean that he wasn't a good ninja. He was just a little handicapped in some places.

I sat quietly, and waited for the tenth question, while people were kicked out caught easily, and not so easily, watching those around me and looking to see what techniques they used to gather Intel.

So far, this was turning out to be an interesting test.

**0.9**

"All right! Here it comes. Get ready for the Tenth Question," Ibiki announced, face hard and serious; my Team all straightened at the exact same time, eyes straight ahead and focused on him. We'd seen him often enough while going through Anko's torture that even my girls knew he wasn't one to be fucked with, and that he deserved your immediate and total respect and attention when he spoke seriously (Not that I'd ever heard him speak any other way _but_ seriously, but _still_…).

"And before we get to the question itself… I'm going to add one more new rule." He said, eyes cold, hard, and deadly serious. "Heh, looks like you're in luck," he said as Kankuro and his puppet-proctor stepped in (I knew it was a puppet, because it had the exact same Chakra as Kankuro did. Only a puppet could do that, and I hardly believed Ibiki would be someone who allowed anyone to leave during and Exam event, even if their bladder was going to explode. He was a stickler for the rules and regulations like that.) "The time you've spent playing with dolls hasn't been completely wasted." Ha! Even Ibiki knew it was a fake! "Don't worry about it. Sit down." Kankuro obeyed.

"Let me explain. This rule… is _absolute._" He said, eyes dead. "First you must choose, whether to accept or reject this Tenth Question!" Shock ranged out, and confusion. Temari broke the stunned silence.

"Ch-choose? What happens if someone doesn't accept the question?" Ibiki gave a slow blink, and met her eyes coldly.

"If you reject the question and don't even try to answer it, you'll lose all of your points immediately… And _**fail**_! And both of your teammates will fail right along with you."

"Say what?" Someone cried.

"Then why would anyone choose to reject it?" Shouted another.

"Because," Ibiki said quietly. "Of the other rule." He lifted his head, and glared out at all of us with a nearly angry look. "If you answer the question…and you get it wrong…you will _never_ be permitted to apply for the Chunin Exams again! Not _ever_."

"You can't be serious!" Kiba shouted immediately. "There are ninja here who've sat for the Chunin Exams more than once already! We know there are!" Ibiki began to chuckle darkly, and I shivered. I recognized that sound from my early days of Punishment Training, when he was in a particularly cruel sort of mood.

"Just your rotten luck," He smirked at us. "That _I_ wasn't making the rules in past years. I am now. I've been up front with you. You can take the failure grade now, and try again later." Confusion filled the room again. "Anyone who has doubts would be smart to reject the Tenth Question right now. Come back and reapply next year, and the year after that." He stared out at us, and smirked again, a colder, harder look.

"Ready? Then lets begin."

**1.0**

"Those who choose to _not_ accept should raise their hands. Once their number has been confirmed, they will leave the room." I remained still and calm, Anko's threat still raised above my head. Rin also remained her blank, aloof self. Toyuchi, though…

She looked very nervous, and glanced back at me. I gave her a warm, reassuring smile, and she hesitantly smiled back, so I winked, and glanced at her overturned paper pointedly. _That_ seemed to remind her that she had, apparently, answered some really tough questions all on her own, so she could handle whatever they threw at her. Her confidence boosted, she grinned at me, nodded, and turned back with a determined look, just as the first Genin gave in and left with his Team. Four more Teams quickly followed. What shocked me, though, was when Naruto raised his hand…

Only to slam it down harshly.

"_Never underestimate me!_" He snarled furiously. "I don't quit, and I won't run! I'll accept your stupid question! Even if I risk ending up a Rookie for the rest of my life…I'll still become Lord Hokage, even if I only make if I only make it by pure stubbornness. I don't care! I'm not afraid of you!" Ibiki stared at him, and I'm pretty sure that only those who knew him for as long as I have, would see the respect kindle in his dark, cold eyes.

"I'll ask you one last time," he said quietly, calmly. "This is a decision that could affect the rest of your life. Quit now, while you still have the chance." Naruto merely grinned at him, eyes dark.

"I never go back on my word," he said, breathing a little harshly from his earlier outburst. "_That's_…my shinobi way!" Everyone still in the room, took Naruto's words to heart. They straightened in their seats, their confidence boosted, and smirked slightly at Ibiki, even as their fingers and hands still trembled slightly. It seemed my Naruto-nii was growing up some, if he could rally seventy-seven other kids around him with one small speech like that. Ibiki looked around the room, and smirked ever-so-slightly.

"Good call," he said, as if admitting it was painful. "So, everyone who is still here…" Everyone seemed to gulp at once, waiting tensely… "You've just passed the First Exam!"

**1.1**

"So…all seventy-eight of you who are still here…you've just passed the First Exam," Ibiki continued easily, smirking widely now in amusement at our gobsmacked looks.

"What do you mean _passed_?" Pepto blurted, gaping. "When did that happen? What about the Tenth Question?" _Why_ is that capitalized again? Is it a proper noun or something? Jeesh, people…

"There _is_ no Tenth Question!" Ibiki said, suddenly grinning (which is kind of scary) "Beyond the whole 'Accept or Reject' thing."

"Hey!" Temari cried. "Then why did we have to suffer through the other nin questions? That was a total waste of our time!" Ibiki snorted.

"Little Troublemaker," he called. "You explain it to your Suna friend." I snorted and sighed loudly.

"There was no waste, Temari-chan," I said easily, rolling my pencil through my finger. I had gnawed it rather badly, poor thing. "Those questions had a purpose, which they've already served. The proctors goal was to test our skills at _spying_." Shock ran through the classroom at my words, and Ibiki nodded, taping the board.

"Remember the rules at the beginning?" He asked, smirking at us all. "You pass or fail as part of a three-man Cell. With that rule, I pressured you with the fear that anything you do _wrong_ would bring your Teammates down with _you_." Naruto muttered something that made Pepto sweat drop, and Hinata giggle. "However, the questions are beyond the level that junior ninja could be expected to handle. So most of you, having reached that conclusion, had only one way of retaining your points…" He smirked. "By _cheating_." He tilted his head, hands up slightly. "In other words, we set up the test on the assumption that you'd cheat. And, to ensure there would be suitable targets for you to cheat _from_, we snuck in a pair of Ringers, two Chunin who already knew all of the answers." There were a few blurted boasts about who knew who the Chunin were, including from Naruto, but they were ignored.

"Of course anyone who cheated in a clumsy, obvious way," Ibiki continued easily, nonchalantly, "_failed_." He stripped off his headband/bandanna, exposing the horribly mauled scars of his scalp, where he had been tortured when he was younger, by enemy shinobi. "Because there _may_ be circumstances where being caught in the act of espionage can cost you more then just your life," he said with cold, harsh seriousness. "You pay in ways that can be taken from you little by little, time and time again, when many lives hang in the balance." I've decided it.

I want to be Morino Ibiki when I grow up.

"The information you obtain _can't _be trusted," he continued, putting his bandanna back on. "If you can't keep your presence secret from the enemy. Learn that and learn it well. If you bring back intelligence from a suspect source or a compromised operation, you're doing your enemies work for them, putting those you serve in danger. _That_ is why we maneuvered you into using your espionage skills to cheat. It was the quickest way of weeding out the students whose skills aren't yet up to snuff."

"Okay," Temari said after a second. "But what was the deal with the Tenth question?" Ibiki smiled, hands behind his head, tying his bandanna.

"Ah! The Tenth Question was the first _real_ test on the Exam!" Everyone stared.

"What do you mean?" Pepto asked, confused. Ibiki looked vaguely amused.

"Let me explain," he said. "The Tenth Question was choice between two options," he held up two fingers, "that were _both_ difficult and dangerous. Those who chose to reject the question were failed, and their friends along with them. Those who chose to accept and _couldn't_ answer the question, lost any chance of ever even trying again. It was a nasty, unfair, no-win set of options. So," he smirked, "why did I present them? Let's suppose you all go on to successfully attain the rank of Chunin. You are assigned to steal a vital enemy document, knowing nothing about the skills, deployment, or military preparedness of your foe. You _may_ have to cross a territory that has been heavily mined and set with traps. Now…do you accept your mission? Or do you reject it, rather then place your own life–or the lives of your companions–in jeopardy? Could any Chunin get away with only taking on safe jobs? Of course not!" He snapped, grinning harshly now.

"No matter how dangerous the risk, there _will_ be missions that you cannot decline. A ninja must demonstrate valor that inspires those around him, helping all to overcome their fear. _This_ is a talent that we most value in the commander of a Chunin Cell!" I could see Naruto swell slightly under those words, and smiled softly at him from my place. "Those who can't gamble with their own fate, who would trade today's certain risk for tomorrows uncertain future, never taking the chance that lies before them are _weaklings_ who make only weak and easy decisions!" Ibiki was scowling now, eyes dark. "In my opinion, they don't belong in the ranks of Chunin at all! Bu choosing to accept, you answered the most insoluble Tenth Question correctly. If you keep that spirit, you can probably conquer all of the many doubts and difficulties you'll face. You've passed the first hurdle. Part One of the Chunin Selection Exam is now concluded. I pray you fight the good fight," Ibiki added, smirking slightly. Naruto grinned in challenge.

"Yeah, you do that!" He shouted, exuberant. "Go pray!"

"Ho, ho!" Ibiki murmured, smirking even more, amused; I smiled. Ibiki _liked_ Naruto! Yay! My friends were friends now…at least, in a way they were…

_That_ was when Anko broke through the window with her banner.

**1.2**

"I am the Second Chief Examination Officer, Mitarashi Anko! Time's a'wastin', people, let's go! Follow me!" She lifted her hand; nobody move, just staring. I grinned, leaped to my feet, and waved.

"Hi, Neesan!" She threw a kunai at me, and I caught it and threw it back. Eyes narrowing, she threw it back, and we repeated this action for a good five minutes, just tossing the kunai back and forth, faster and harder, until Ibiki snatched it from the air with a sigh.

"Ibiki-oniisama!" I complained, sulking, and Anko sulked too.

"Can't you sense the mood in here, Anko?" He sighed; she looked at us all, and then looked at Ibiki.

"Seventy-eight of you are still here? Ibiki! You passed _twenty-six Teams?_ Obviously you went _way_ too easy on them."

"This year," Ibiki said, unfazed. "We have applicants of exceptional caliber." Anko snorted.

"Yeah, right. I'll cut down the number by half before the next test is done. Ooh! I get charged up just thinking about it!" She shivered, and I sweat dropped when people looked between her and me with blank, disbelieving looked, or looks of complete understanding and realization. I'm not _that_ bad! "I'll explain things in detail as soon as we move to our next location… So _follow me_!" She ordered, and we all obediently got up to follow my crazy Neesan. As I passed Naruto's seat, I couldn't help but chuckle.

His paper was completely and utterly blank.

**1.3**

Forty minutes later, we stood before a massive forest, outside a fence with multiple signs and warnings all over it that was held close with padlocks and thick chains.

"This is the arena for the Second Exam: Training Ground Forty-four," Anko said with a sly, eager smile I knew so well, that made my Team move closer together and shiver. "Also known as… The _Forest of __**Death**_!"

Dun-dun-_Duuuuun!_

**1.4**

Silence reigned for a few minutes, and then people began to murmured, about how creepy/scary/intimidating the massive, hulking trees looked. I had to say, though. It had _nothing_ on the Forbidden Forest during a Full Moon.

"You're about to find out firsthand," Anko said with a smirk, "why we call this the Forest of Death." After a few seconds, Naruto pulled a, well, I'm going to have to start calling it 'Pulling a Naruto' because only he can pull stupid things like trying to be brash and boastful towards my Neesan, when he _knows_ her and how she is. I mean, he's only spent the night at our apartment _a gazillion_ times!

"Oh, really?" Anko purred to his outburst, eyes slitting slightly and a pleased, weird smile curling her lips. "You're pretty cocky, huh, Naruto-kun?" In a millisecond, she had thrown a kunai at her fastest, and I barely had time to shunshin over and catch it before it could cut his cheek, making sure to stop it directly next to his face. I slowly pulled it away, then promptly smacked Naruto upside the head and threw the kunai back to my sister.

"What did I tell you about idiotic outbursts earlier?" I demanded. "And you were doing so good, too! Getting Ibiki-oniisama to smile and give you a compliment and everything!" I huffed, and glared at Anko. "And Neesan! Stop flirting with my friends! They're too young to understand you!" She threw her head back and laughed, er, well, _cackled_ would be a better term for it, and I sighed in exasperation as it made her breasts jiggle in an interesting way.

Weird, kinky older sister with the messed up head.

"Keep your tongue on a leash, Naruto-kun," she suggested when she calmed down, smiling cheerfully. "Or someone might just cut it out and eat it!" She giggled lightly and grinned at him, licking her lips, and I rolled my eyes. "Now," she continued, turning a bit more business-like, "before we begin the Second Exam, there's something I have to hand out." She held up a thick pad of consent forms, smiling happily. "They're consent forms. Everybody has to sign one!"

"Er, why?" Naruto asked, confused. Anko beamed at him.

"We want all the details covered before the first deaths occur," she announced, still beaming, and several people went ghost-white at her happy-go-lucky attitude about it. "Sign before you go in so we can't be held liable. You wouldn't want me to get in trouble, now, would you?" She chirruped; and I couldn't help but snicker, walking forward and getting three forms. I walked back and handed them to my teammates, we filled them out silently and unhesitantly. We knew better then to think she was kidding. This was _Anko,_ for Jashin's sake! She would play with our _intestines_ for _fun_ if she knew I could heal the wound and she wouldn't have to fill out a bunch of paperwork for it!

"First, I'll explain what the Second Exam entails," Anko told us, though my Team had already done so. I wasn't allowed to back out, and my teammates knew that. "Then you can sign the forms! With the other two members of your Cell, bring the forms to the hut behind you and submit them. Midori-chan isn't allowed another option, or I'll torture him to death, so he _has_ to sign it, whether he wants to or not, so ignore him and his Team for now," she told everyone, and I shrugged, smiling.

"Love you too, Neesan," I said easily, and she stuck her tongue out at me, licking the kunai from earlier with a bit of a wistful look.

"Got all that so far? Good! Now, about the Exam. Simply put, it's a no-holds barred survival test!" People murmured, surprised, or grumbled (Shikamaru). "Let's start with the topography of this Training Ground. I'll explain the rest later. Training Ground Forty-Four is bordered by a circular perimeter interrupted at regular intervals by forty-four locked gates. There are forests, a river, and in the center is a tower, about ten kilometers from those gates, evenly." She nodded, smiling still. "Within the confines of this carefully delineated area, you're going to undergo a survival test. During the course of that test, you may use any ninja arts or weapons you have at your disposal.

"It's a kind of fight-to-the-death version," she explained, grinning ferally, "of 'Capture the Flag'…Or, in this case, 'Capture the Scroll'."

"Scroll?" Someone called out; she nodded happily.

"Exactly!" She exclaimed, grinning. "There's a 'Scroll of Heaven'," she held up a yellow scroll. "And a 'Scroll of Earth'," she held up a red scroll, letting everyone see them. "You objective is to acquire _both_ scrolls. There are seventy-eight of you here. Thirteen Teams will start out with eth Heaven scroll, while the _other_ thirteen will have the Earth scrolls, alright?" She smiled. "That's twenty-six three-member teams each. But remember, you'll need _both_ scrolls to pass. So your objective is to hold on to your own scroll, and get your hands on someone else's… And then bring them _both_ to the tower at the center."

"So in other words, at least half of us, the thirteen Teams who lose their scrolls," Pepto said clearly, looking nervous but determined at the same time, "they'll fail.

"You bet!" Anko chirruped. "And there's a _time limit_! You have a hundred and twenty hours to complete this exam, which is exactly five days!" She informed us, grinning.

"Five days?" Ino cried.

"What are we supposed to do for food?" Choji bemoaned, eyes huge.

"That's your problem," Anko said with a careless shrug. "The Forest's full of Natures Bounty. Of course, they're also full of man-eating animals, deadly insects, and poisonous plants… And _no_, Midori, you are _not_ allowed to keep anything you find as a pet, testing subject, or weapon," she added, frowning, looking serious for the first time. I stomped my foot and scowled, then sighed.

"I never get to have any fun," I said mournfully; Rin patted me on the shoulder consolingly (which is weird, 'cause her expression never shifted…)

"There's no way as many as thirteen teams will pass," Anko continued, returning to her morbidly cheerful self. "As the time shortens, the trials will become harder and faster, with less recovery time for any mistakes, accidents, or injuries. Enemies will surround you at all times, so you'll have to sleep with one eye open. So, in addition to those who die in the attempts to defend or capture a scroll, some of you are _bound_ to succumb to exhaustion, exposure, starvation, and dehydration.

"Now," she continued, grinning happily. "Let's talk about the rules… And what offenses you can be disqualified for!" She held up one finger. "Obviously, the Teams that fail to reach the tower in time, even as a three member Cell, carrying both a Heaven and an Earth scroll, are out." She held up two fingers. "So any Team that loses a member, whether to death or severe injury, they're out too!" She dropped her hands to her hips and leaned back, making her breasts jut out slightly, and smiled slyly at everyone. "And under _no_ circumstances can you leave the Forest before time is up. No recess, no time-outs. And _also_, you're forbidden to look at the contents of the scrolls until you're inside the tower!"  
>"What happens if we sneak a peek?" Naruto asked curiously.<p>

"That's for those who look to know!" Anko teased, winking playfully at him with a sadistically sweet smile. "If any of you make it to the Chunin level, there will be times when you'll be entrusted with top-secret documents, so consider this a test of your trustworthiness." She put her hands in her pockets. "That's all the explanation you get," she said idly, rocking on her feet as if bored and eager to move things along. "We'll trade one scroll for every three forms. When you've got yours, choose the Gate you want to start from. Everyone will begin at the same time…

"One final piece of advise," She added, finally looking at everyone seriously. "Stay alive!" And then she left, to go into the hut where we would receive the scrolls, which was hidden by a black sheet. The consent forms remained on the ground where she'd stood.

Everyone slowly moved forward, picked up the papers, and started reluctantly filling them out. Yes, my sister is a crazy, bloodthirsty bitch. This is exactly her kind of challenge, and I have no doubt she'll be somewhere, watching me the entire time, egging me on to kill every enemy shinobi Team I come across.

But you gotta love her anyways.

**A/N:** And finished!

NOTE! To the Anonymous Reviewer Who Said the Following Things:

That Harry is Tall, not Short,

That the quote is Let SLIP the Dogs of War From the play JULIUS Cesar, NOT Cesar,

And that Midori is a girls name,

I reply:

WRITER PEROGATIVE!

I could have given Harry fucking cat ears and a tail, you whiny son-of-a-bitch.

His HEIGHT isn't a PROBLEM when I turned him into a BABY _Anyways_!

I got the Quote from a website, so it's the websites issue, _not_ mine!, And Julius Cesar and Cesar are the SAME FUCKING PERSON YOU ASSHAT!

And Midori being a girls name, I _KNOW_! That's why Anko _named_ him it. It's **Anko**! She would have named him freaking _Dango_ if he reminded her of it enough!

(Rolls eyes)

Sorry for the rant but, like Toyuchi, I dislike IDIOTS, _Especially_ ones who don't even _sign-in_ in order to try and bad-mouth me, in a pathetic way, but _still_.

Read the authors note in the first chapter.

Flamers, go fuck your mothers.

Constructive Criticism is accepted, though.

Emphasis on CONSTRUCTIVE.

_**R&R!**_


	4. Voltaire

**A/N:** Here's the next chapter!

TO THOSE WHO ARE UPSET THAT I MADE MIDORI BISEXUAL!

Deal with it.

I'm not putting anything graphic for THOSE scenes in here, if I even have any, and if I DO they'll be in a separate story for one-shots, alright?

This way, people could request pairings of both Het and Slash nature.

Those who stop reading this simply because of the Bisexual part are prejudice and assholes, though they have a right to their opinion. The above statement is MY opinion.

Deal With It!

Also, I'd like everyone to know, that there are _not_ enough boy Japanese names listed in the online baby-name sites. If you have any good ones (WITH THEIR MEANING, PLEASE!) then you can totally send me a list. I've been having to give guys girl names that sound boyish so that they have a name.

ALSO apparently the sign for shunshin is the Ram, _not_ the Boar, Thank you Reviewer who told me. I go to Narutopedia for most of my info before now, but I only just found it when I was starting this fic, and so my search-techniques on it aren't too sharp. I'm a little shabby on how to find all the signs and techniques and things like that. If you could Review/PM the details on how to find them to me, I would very much appreciate it!

Thank you!

_**R&R!**_

**P.S.** To _**mabidiso**_ or as I call, the Author of the Awesome Review I Just Got. THANK YOU! I didn't even realize I was making Midori out to being omniscient and slightly over-bearing in his knowledge and power until you pointed it out. It's kind of in his character, though, (the leadership and taking control, thing) since he was an assassin used to be in charge of all the missions, team and solo, he was on. He can _take_ orders, and he can follow them, but he is a leader by nature. But I adore your Review. PLEASE feel free to PM me or Review even more, on each chapter even! To tell me what you think about it.

Thank you, again, for the Kick Ass Review of Awesomeness!

_Hugs & Kittens,_

_~Wizard_

**P.S.S.** Though I am _LOATHE_ to say it, I apologize to the dumbass I went Anko on in my ending A/N last chappy, on a single part. Apparently, Cesar is also a Title, not just a name. I apologize for stating otherwise. HOWEVER! I stand by everything else I said, and RESTATE the fact that I got the fucking quote from a _website_ where it said _Cesar_. Ergo, Websites fault for the misprint, not mine, until I posted that A/N Rant.

That's the only apology you get, you Fuck-Tard.

_With Burning Contempt,_

_~Wizard_

MINIMUM NUMBER OF WORDS :

10,000

NUMBER OF WORDS – A/N:

10,050

**Jinchuuriki**

**Three**

"_Common Sense is not so common." ~ Voltaire_.

(As Requested by a Reviewer, I picked a Voltaire Quote. Anyone who asks for a quote must SIGN-IN and REVIEW the NAME OF THE PERSON they want me to quote. I will choose the specific Quote. I wont accept requests from Anonymous Reviewers. Thank You)

**0.0**

My Team started at Gate Twenty, between two forks of the river. It was downstream, and a bit of a harder trek then I could have hoped, but also a good place to start from when you've got a team of purely stubborn Genin ready to move. As soon as Anko let us start, we were moving forward, into the small clump of tightly enclosed trees directly in front of us, maybe a quarter of a mile away. It would be at the junction of the river, a mangrove, and a death trap to those who didn't know its tricks… Like us, but we could work around that, no worries!

"Which scroll do we have?" Toyuchi asked me, running at my side. I shifted slightly and showed her the red of the Earth scroll, hiding it again immediately, eyes never stopping their perusal of the area as Rin ran on my other side. "So, what's the plan?" I bit back a sigh. One does not plan _aloud_ on these things, Toyuchi!

"To be quiet and get the other scroll," Rin told her bluntly; I nodded, and Toyuchi huffed, offended. Once we hit the mangroves, I conjured twenty wolves, and Toyuchi summoned Yemon (whose fur would blend in much better then her other cats would.). The large Persian sniffed darkly at the mossy plant-life around us, and at the mud we'd had to avoid or risk leaving tracks, but he took to the trees to begin scouting, like my wolves did. They knew not to bother the nasty feline, who had claws that were a good size larger then they were meant to be, and a penchant for using them first, along with his ability to enlarge himself to the size of a small horse or large pony. (That is one _scary_ flat-faced cat, let me tell you. Toyuchi sic'd him on me in training, and I nearly screamed when he went jumbo-sized. I mean, holy fucking hell, MAMMOTH CAT! &Shudders&). As they scouted out, my girls and I took refuge in the hole of a large tree, holding kunai and Toyuchi with her machete at the ready, just in case.

About ten minutes later, the Teams that were at Gate Nineteen and Twenty-One ran by, at different intervals, and didn't even notice each other, or our scouts. We stayed still and quiet for ten more minutes, and then shifted slightly so that we were away from the opening, and Toyuchi summoned her cat Amaya (a tiny black kitten with dark blue eyes, who I could hold in the palm of my hand, and who was a recent acquirement that took so little Chakra that Toyuchi could summon her with any of her other cats) to watch the doorway. The tiny kitten curled up on the ledge, blending well with the evening shadows, eyes slitting half-shut, and watched everything that happened while we moved on to plan together.

"We have five days," I murmured quietly. "We have the Earth scroll, and need the Heaven scroll. There are thirteen Teams who have them, and another twelve who have the Earth, and we have no idea, which Teams have which. We have no food, no water, no map, and that five-day time limit. So," I said, meeting first Rin's eyes, then Toyuchi's. "Let's make a plan, shall we?" They grinned (or, well, Toyuchi grinned, Rin smiled faintly, but it was a Rin grin… Ha! Rin Grin &Snicker&)

**0.1**

"Ah!" The Iwa-nin cried out as Rin's braid wrapped tightly around the three of them while she hid in the shadows. Quickly, from my own hiding place, I threw three senbon, and soon the three Genin were in the arms of…whatever god dealt with those who slept in this region. I don't know. Toyuchi darted forward, scrounged through their clothes, and held up an Earth scroll, shaking her head. Rin dropped them, Toyuchi recovered my needles, and we left them unconscious on the ground without waking them, their scroll on top of their unconscious bodies. Lets see who actually took it…

This was the third Team of Earth Scrolls we'd found five hours. It was like all the Heaven scrolls were on the _other_ side of the damn Forest.

"Nice trick you've got here, kids," a voice said; I twisted around, and caught the kunai that was coming for my head, cursing as I dove from my cover to dodge the exploding tag that it had attached to it. The resulting explosion sent chunks of splinters after me, and Rin and Toyuchi met me in the center of the small clearing we'd set our trap in. It was a choke-zone, where you had to pass to get through, and it seemed we were trapped there now as well, by a group of older Genin from, according to their headbands, Kumogakure, the Village Hidden in the Clouds.

"But you'll need more then that to make it to Chunin," one of them said, smiling easily. He had dark skin and black, spiked hair, and dark green eyes, with his headband around his neck. He wore a fishnet tank top, and camouflage pants, using bandages around his ankles to tie the loose clothe down tight around his heavy boots.

To his left was a pretty girl with dark pink hair under an orange hat, with a yellow shirt and red shorts, and orange sandals. She stuck her tongue out playfully, winking bright yellow eyes at me, and I blinked slowly. The boy on his right had white hair, a sullen expression, and matching silver eyes, wearing all black, and all standard wear for a Genin. Nothing interesting, except for the katana he had strapped to his back.

"You wouldn't happen to have the Heaven scroll, would you?" I asked hopefully, and Toyuchi smacked me upside the head. I yelped. "What? I don't want to go through the trouble of some epic battle, get to the end, and then find out we have the same scroll and it was all for nothing! Seriously, who wastes Chakra like that?" I scowled at her, and the girl spoke up.

"We have the Earth scroll," she said, and the dark skinned teen sent her a dark look; she rolled her eyes. "Oh, puh-_lease_ with the look already, Kisho! The cutie has a point, even if he _is_ too young to reap any benefits from extra energy." She winked at me. "In a few years, if you live that long, you should look me up in Kumo! I'm Liso Kyoko, just so you know!" She grinned, and I blinked at her, then looked at my teammates.

"Did an enemy just come on to me?" I asked them confused. "In the middle of a strange stare-down that could erupt into a battle for our lives?" Rin nodded.

"Yup, Midori-chan, she did," Toyuchi agreed. I thought about it for a moment.

"That's… Freaking awesome!" I grinned up at the strange chick, and gave her a thumbs up. "If you live long enough to visit Konoha in a few years, look me up then, 'kay, Kyoko-chan? I'm Mitarashi Midori!" Toyuchi smacked me upside the head, and I glared at her. "You don't show me any respect at _all_," I announced; Rin smacked me as well. "You're both so mean!" I ducked their attempt to smack me at the same time, and stuck my tongue out at them.

"I like them," Kyoko told Kisho, grinning. "What do you think, Kin?" She asked the sullen boy.

"I think that we're all going to die some day, so we might as well live right now," he said dully; we all stared at him, and then I reached in my pocket, and pulled out a chocolate bar.

"Eat this," I told him, throwing it up to him. He caught it. "Chocolate makes everything better." He stared at it blankly.

"Candy gives you cavities, which causes you pain," he said, opening the wrapper anyways. "But it wont be as much pain as life gives you, in the end." He took a bite and, after a minute, seemed to lose a great weight on his shoulders, and a small smile curled his lips. I pointed at him triumphantly as his teammates stared, dumbfounded.

"See?" I demanded. "Chocolate makes everything better!"

"Ten out of ten people die," he said, sounding happy about it, and took another bite of the candy, sighing happily as he did so, and looking like he just had a small mouth orgasm (I know the look. Anko has it every time she has Dango, and Naruto has it every time someone else is paying for however much Ramen he wants).

"That's too true," I agreed, nodding. "An ostriches brain is the size of its eyeball," I told him; he blinked.

"When we die, our bodies decay in the ground," he told me.

"There's a place in the Outer Lands were, if you get pregnant unexpectedly after swimming in the river, it's blamed on frisky dolphins," I told him bluntly; Toyuchi choked, staring at me, wide-eyed.

"Seriously?" she asked; Rin nodded, pulling out a book.

"It's in a place called South America, were tribal people on the banks of a large river called the Amazon live," she informed her, and I nodded, looking pleased, and tapped my brain.

"Lots of random bits of knowledge up here!" I announced; of course, they didn't know that half-human, half-Merpeople babies were actually born in some of those tribal areas, the magical creatures glamour's making them seem, to the Muggles, as nothing more then 'frisky dolphins'. The Peace Mission I'd had to go on when I was nineteen, to rescue a British Witch who the local Merking had wanted for a bride there, had given me all sorts of wiggy insights to the culture. Hell, some of the Merpeople who could be seen in their actual form were worshiped as _gods_ by the tribes in the Amazon rainforests! They were _given_ virgins, male and female, to take and make freaky babies with!

It was a weird ass society that didn't make any sense to me, but I'd saved the Witch.

"So," I continued on, shaking my head. "Are we agreed that fighting one another would be a total waste of Chakra and time?" I asked hopefully; the three Kumo-nin nodded after a second. "Good, buh-bye then!" I said, and, from my hiding place thirty feet away, I dissolved the three _Henge_'d _Kage Ookami_. Rin and Toyuchi looked up from where they were finishing tying up yet another group of Genin, this one actually having _no_ scroll at _all_, and I nodded at them.

With that nod, we took off running, my shadow wolves surrounding us and using the shadows to cloak their numbers and movements, and Yemon following from the treetops. Amaya rode on Toyuchi's shoulder. I _Henge_'d six wolves to look like the three of us, and sent them in different directions. If one of my Pseudo Teams (as I called them) got the Heaven scroll before my actual Team did, they would bring it to me.

This plan of Rin's was really working out so far.

**0.2**

"Pseudo Team East got the Heaven scroll," I told Toyuchi and Rin as we sat on the riverbank. We'd been following it for the last day, trying to find the tower. I'd sent four Pseudo Teams out since we stopped to rest, each with a group of five wolves to guard their backs, and sent them in all four of the main directions. "Pseudo Team South has found another Earth scroll, as has Pseudo Team West. Pseudo Team North is in pursuit of some Kusagakure Genin that managed to get the drop on them and almost popped them all, if not for the wolves." Rin hummed, reading a book on Chakra, as Toyuchi carefully made her way up a tree, walking cautiously.

She really _had_ made some progress.

"So once East gets back here, we'll be able to make it to the tower, hopefully," Rin said idly, turning a page. I grunted in affirmation, and sent another pack of wolves to help East make it to our location safely, relaying the back-up squad to them without a thought. This inter-mind connection with my wolves was damn confusing, though not as confusing as the fact that when I said _Kage Pseudo Team_ now (the first time was an accident), a flesh-and-blood replica of our Team, with small differences, appeared. Differences like a left-handed Toyuchi, a Rin with brown eyes instead of black, and a me with gloves that _weren't _fingerless, tiny things people who didn't know us or have good observational skills wouldn't know. It was interesting, to say the least, and they didn't pop in a single hit, but _three_. It was _weird_, but some of my magic was going through them, so I guess it's only rational that they'd be mutated.

And they all called me _General_. It was even stranger, and Toyuchi said it was egotistical. Bah, she preened when they called her Lieutenant, though she pouted because Rin was Captain. Whatever it was that made the Pseudo Teams harder to beat, and their own attack, it made Juu radiate smugness in the back of my head, so _he_ probably had something to do with it, though he refused to comment when I jabbed him with a mental stick about it. So, I grudgingly thanked him for the neat, new Jutsu, and left it at that.

If I'd said any more, he'd gloat about it.

"What's their arrival time?" Toyuchi asked, flipping off from the tree she was climbing to land gracefully next to me. I glazed my eyes over, trusting my teammates to watch my back, and checked Pseudo Team East's direction and speed.

"An hour at most," I said, "if they don't meet anyone, which, so far, they haven't, though the wolves have taken out two traps. I don't think the traps owners are going to be very pleased." Refocusing my eyes, I winced at my headache, but didn't bother to heal it. I'd just have another one soon enough, when I dispelled my Pseudos and wolves and got every piece of information they'd gathered. Wincing at even the thought, I stood and stretched carefully, ignoring the growling in my stomach. We hadn't eaten in twelve hours, though we'd almost caught a rabbit earlier (a giant fucking snake had gotten it first, and Toyuchi had freaked out worse then she had when she'd been chased by the Inuzuka dogs. Apparently, she was utterly terrified of snakes since, when she was a toddler, a python got into her crib and almost strangled her to death… Bad time for me to have told her that I actually have a great deal of affection for them, then, huh? Oh well, another thing to add to the list of things we disagree on: Dogs Vs Cats, Snakes Vs no Snakes, Chocolate Vs Peanut Butter, you know, the usual.) but otherwise we'd yet to have anything to eat.

"What do we do until then?" the brunet asked; I pursed my lips and then sighed.

"Try and get something to eat, I suppose," I said; Rin immediately put her book away and sat up, doing the familiar hand-signs to make her braid massive and living. It made a silent hissing motion with its "mouth", and dove into the river, writhing and twisting, before it erupted again, with a large salmon in its grip.

"Awesome, Rin!" I cheered as she dropped the two-foot fish on the bank, and began wriggling her hair in the water in an attempt to get rid of the fish-scales and slime, her nose wrinkling in distaste.

"Disgusting," she muttered, cutting a cold glare towards the flopping fish, which I quickly killed with a senbon to its brain. Toyuchi was already making a fire, and so I took a kunai and began to gut and fillet our meal so that we could eat it, tossing the guts to Yemon and Amaya, who lay napping nearby on a large rock.

"**Thank you, boy-kit,"** Yemon muttered, sinking his claws into the guts, as Amaya purred loudly and gnawed on her chunk of entrails, sounding and looking delighted. It was a rather brutal sight, thinking about it, as she was a very sweet and gentle soul… But it was also morbidly fascinating and distracting, so I turned my gaze back to the fish, and continued to work on it's large form.

After fifteen more minutes, chunks of fish were skewered on sticks over a small, hot fire, and we were eagerly awaiting their finish, and Pseudo Team East's return.

**0.3**

"This is going to be dangerous," Rin murmured as we hid, perched in a tree, across from the tower. It was surrounded by nothing but empty land for forty feet on all sides, and so any who ventured out into the open were sitting ducks. I frowned at the field, when suddenly, Toyuchi poked me repeatedly in the arm, grinning frantically.

"I've got an idea!" She whispered, eyes bright. "_I've_ got an _idea_! And it's not too stupid, neither!" I blinked, met Rin's gaze, and shrugged, sitting back.

"So," I said, cocking my head. "What is it?" She told us, and Rin and I stared at each other.

"That might actually work," she said; I nodded, face thoughtful, before a grin broke out across it.

"Well, come on then, let's get to it!" I said, and Toyuchi beamed, puffed up with pride, as we set about putting _'Mission: Get To The Door'_ into affect (so we can't think of cool names, so what?).

**0.4**

"Someone, help, please!" Toyuchi cried, dragging me, bloodied and beaten, into the field, her own wounds ignored. Rin limped along as well, and Amaya, Yemon, Yachi, and Yuki all followed behind, mreowing loudly to catch attention. After a few seconds, halfway to the doors, a Genin Team from Kirigakure jumped in-between us and the door, and I made a show of coughing up blood, eyes glazed as I wheezed, holding a badly damaged and bloody side. My lung had been punctured.

"Well, well, well," the middle and leading Genin purred, her brown eyes malicious. "What have we here? Run into some trouble, little Rookies?" Toyuchi whimpered and cringed back, and I moaned in pain as I was jostled.

"Please let us pass," she begged, tears falling from her eyes. "We're already disqualified. Our scroll got taken, and Midori is dying! _Please_!" She sobbed, and Rin looked away, blinking quickly as tears brightened her own eyes, her jaw clenching. I moaned softly again, and vomited, a mixture of blood and bile. The Kiri-nin all sneered, and moved out of our way, trying, and failing, to kick the cats as they did so. Yemon hissed balefully as he passed, and ran forward to take the lead, nose and tail snootily in the air. As soon as we reached the doors…

We disappeared in a burst of smoke, and Yachi, Yuki, and Amaya disappeared and reappeared as the real us. We (Toyuchi and I) blew the disbelieving Kiri-nin kisses, and dove inside, which was a neutral zone, and laughed happily, (Again, Toyuchi and I) Rin merely smiling in amusement as Toyuchi and I high-five'd. Yemon sniffed disdainfully, and licked the fur on his chest, while the _real_ Amaya crawled out of my pants pocket and blinked curiously around us. I quickly followed her example, and looked all around us.

It was a pretty average, blank looking room, with a high ceiling and two balconies on either side of us. There was a large plaque on the wall, though, that caught and held our attention. Rin read it aloud.

"'_If qualities of Heaven_

_are your desire,_

_Acquire wisdom and_

_Knowledge to take your mind higher._

_If Earthly qualities_

_are what you lack,_

_Train your body_

_In the fields and prepare to attack._

_When both Heaven and Earth_

_Are opened together,_

_The path of peril will_

_Revert to the path of righteousness forever_

_This " " is the secret way…_

…_that guides us from_

_this place today._

_The Third Hokage_'"

"Huh," I said, scratching my head. "I suck majorly at puzzles," I said, shrugging, when Toyuchi looked at me. She sweat-dropped, and then we both turned expectantly to Rin. She frowned, staring at the puzzle, silently rereading it multiple times. What I said was true, though. I sucked at puzzles. All I could figure out, was that we needed both the Heaven scroll and Earth scroll to go any further, and that was it, and _obvious_. _Naruto_ could figure it out, and while he was kinda street-smart, and could figure things out by the seat of his pants, he wasn't very good at these kinds of things either.

"We'll have to open both the scrolls at the same time, I suppose," she said slowly, after five straight, silent minutes of staring at the Third Hokage's quote. I nodded, and handed over the Heaven scroll to her.

"Ooh, ooh!" Toyuchi exclaimed, and gave me huge, pleading eyes. "I've _really_ wanted to open one, but known better, but now we can, so can I _please_ do it?" I rolled my eyes, and handed her the Earth scroll with an amused smile.

"These remind me of that scroll test we had to pass for Tekuno-sensei when we first became a Team, you know," I told them; they smiled at the memory, and then opened the scrolls. Inside them, was a single kanji, the symbol for 'Humanity'.

And then they began to smoke.

**0.5**

"Iruka-sensei?" I blurted, confused, as he appeared from the smoking scrolls (which the girls had immediately thrown away from themselves, and we'd all drawn our weapons and fallen into ready positions.) I glared at him suspiciously, as did Rin and Toyuchi. He could, after all, be some enemy _Henge_'d into Iruka...

"Hey kids," he greeted, smiling slightly, arms crossed over his chest. "Its been a while, hasn't it?" He looked us over approvingly. "You three don't look too beat up."

"What did you do to Naruto after Mizuki betrayed the Village?" I asked him coldly; tightening my hold on my senbon. He blinked, startled, before approval flashed on his face and he nodded, straightening and showing his empty hands.

"I gave him my headband, and congraduated him on graduating," he said. "You smiled, and scolded him for jumping on me when you were trying to heal my wounds." My teammates looked at me, and I nodded, and we slid our weapons away. I smiled and began to chew on a senbon, and Toyuchi bounced in place and passed her machete from hand-to-hand, while Rin pulled out her book and began to read where she left off. Iruka sweat-dropped a bit when he saw that, then laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Haven't changed much, have you three?" We paused to look at each other, and shrugged.

"Why should we have?" I asked; Rin nodded.

"Our personalities work well together most of the time," she agreed. Toyuchi grinned and sheathed her machete, and locked her fingers togther, showing our old teacher.

"See? We mesh, like _this_, Sensei!" He laughed again, and shook his head.

"Well congratulations, you've all passed the Second Exam!" He told us, grinning as Toyuchi and I whooped and high-five'd, giving Rin a light shoulderbump as she continued to read.

"What clue are you supposed to give us, Iruka-sensei?" She asked instead of celebrating, closing her book with a snap, and eying him with cool, alert eyes. Toyuchi and I blinked at her, then shrugged, and turned intent eyes on our once-teacher.

"Very good," he said, smiling. "Part of why I'm here is to make sure you understand the message scroll, so read it again. It's a directive set down by the Third Lord Hokage for all Chunin shinobi." I blinked, as did Toyuchi.

"'Directive?'" We both asked, and cut our eyes to Rin, our information source.

"A set of belief or standard set for the shinobi who follow it," she explained; we nodded.

"Ah," I said.

"Okay," Toyuchi agreed, and we turned back to Iruka-sensei. He smiled at us in a strange, wistful way, and nodded.

"Exactly," he agreed, nodding to Rin. "In the text, the word 'Heaven' refers to the Human Mind, while 'Earth' refers to the Human Body. Now, _'If qualities of Heaven are your desire, Aquire wisdom and Knowledge to take your mind Higher'_. In other words, if Toyuchi's weakest area is her brain and acedemic knowledge, as well as her ability to fight off genjutsu..."

"I've got to study hard and learn the principles that will help me on my missions!" She blurted, looking pleased and embarrased at the same time. "_And_ practice some mental defence Jutsu or something." Iruka beamed at her proudly, and Rin and I both set hands on her shoulder to show our support.

"Well done, Toyuchi!" He said, nodding. "Now, _'If Earthly qualities are what you lack, then train your body in fields and prepare for attack'_. If Midori's weak point is close-range, physical attacks, then he has to train hard and beat that weakness, and build in strength and power." I nodded to acknowledge his point, and soon both of my teammates had a hand on my shoulders, smiling slightly.

"We'll help with that, no worries, Midori-chan!" Toyuchi exclaimed, while Rin merely nodded in agreement.

"I have some scrolls and things you may borrow to start building up your taijutsu," she said; I nearly sweat-dropped. Of _course_ she wanted me to _read_. This was _Rin_ we're talking about, who was a blank, anti-social, emotionless Hermione/Ravenclaw if I ever saw one.

"Once you access the qualities of both Heaven and Earth," Iruka told us, still in lecture mode, so we tuned in to listen (not that Rin ever even truly tuned _out_, but _still_...) "No mission, however dangerous, will be a wrong path for you. You'll be walking a safe path even in the most perlous mission..." Silence. Then: "That's it!" We stared at him.

"What about the blank space on the Directive?" Toyuchi asked; it seemed that she liked being able to use a new word. Iruka held up the used Heaven scroll, smiling.

"The word that goes there is a description of what a Chuni _should_ be. The single character that belongs in that blank space is from these scrolls. It's _jin_, meaning one person, or all people. The challenge of seeing who survived tese five days is part of the Exam designed to test the applicants basic Chunin abilities. _You_ all passed ahead of schedule, and with flying colors!" He looked serious, and set the scroll on his hip, holding up his free hand, one finger pointing up, in his favorite lecturing pose, and instinctive, automatic movement. "Chunin are the unit commander class, responsible for leading their Teams. They can only do so by a combination of intelligence and strength. I can't emphasize it enough. Learn it, live it. Believe in it from the bottom of your heart! Keep the Chunin directive foremost in your mind as you move on to the next Exam. That's the entire message." Instantly, Toyuchi and I saluted, while Rin bowed politely.

"Hai, Sensei!" We barked out, eyes hard and serious, faces stern. He blinked at us, startled, and then he gave a small, rather sad smile.

"You're not students anymore, but shinobi," he murmured, and saluted us back, returning Rin's light bow.

**0.6**

After that, a Jounin came along, and Iruka disappeared in another poof of smoke. The Jounin grinned at us, and lead us to a large room with couches and small tables, with a few medic-nin on hand to help us bandage (but not heal) wounds. I was pleasantly surprised (but not overly so) to see Gaara and his siblings there already, as well as the Kumo-nin from before. I waved to them all, though only Temari and Kyoko waved back, which prompted a glaring match between the two (while fun to witness, we did _not_ need a kunoichi battle going on).

"Gaara!" I greeted warmly, padding over as Toyuchi flopped down on a couch and Rin sat next to her, reading a book while covertly watching the room, eyes narrowed. Gaara looked at me from where he was leaning against the wall, expression as blank and unwelcoming as usual, but I ignored it and padded over to stand in front of him. "Did you have fun?" I asked him, grinning easily. "My Team had a few issues, but we're not as lucky as others. We had to trick our way to the doors, even!" I shot Toyuchi a proud smile when she grinned smugly. "Toyuchi thought up a pretty good plan for that, though those Kiri-nin are still really gullible."

"I merely killed all who stood between me and the tower," Gaara told me calmly, emotionlessly, blinking slowly. "The first Team we came upon had the scroll we needed. We arrived a little more then an hour after the Exam began." I whistled in appreciation, and shook my head.

"Brilliant," I said, and smiled. "Rather glad I was on the oppostite side of the Forst from you, then. I have no doubt you'd have no compunctions with killing me." Gaara nodded, face cool and aloof, and Toyuchi sputtered at my back.

"I thought you two were friends?" She demanded, confused; I blinked over at her, and shrugged.

"We're shinobi," I said, and smiled. "Just because we're friends doesn't mean we won't look out for what's best for our Villages, and ourselves. You gotta remember that, Toyuchi-chan!" I said easily, and padded over to Kankuro, eyes bright. "Hey, hey! Can you show me how to use a tiny puppet? Not a big one for battle, just a tiny one, like a childs doll or something?" I asked him hopefully. "You got me interested with that proctor-doll you had in the First Exam." Kankuro blinked for a seconds, startled.

"Uh… You've got to have some pretty good Chakra control," he started, then shook his head, "But I've seen you walk on water, and you're a pretty good medic-nin, so you probably have the needed control. Do you have a puppet or do you need to borrow one?" He asked hesitantly; I pulled a storage scroll happily from my bag and opened it. Out came the purple Catnip doll, and a small, purple wooden one. I quickly put the Catnip doll away, seconds before Toyuchi pounced on the table. She cursed, eyes glazed, and I grinned at her.

"I knew you loved me," I told her smugly; she hissed and swiped at me with her claws, but I dodged back, laughing. She moved sulkily back to the couch, pulled out her machete warningly, and began to sharpen it. Rin patted her on the head idly, not looking up from her book, as I returned to my own seat. I picked up my little purple puppet, and offered it to Kankuro to look over.

"Hmm…" He said, pulling a small kit from his pouch and opening it, exposing tools, which he spread out on the table. "You won't be able to do much with this little guy," he said idly, and began to take the puppet apart to look at all his pieces. "He'll move fast, but he won't have flexible fingers, so he can't really pick anything up. He'd be a good diversion, though, or scout for small areas." I nodded, leaning my elbows on the table, head perched on my hands, to watch him work, fascinated.

"Can you put a small compartment on his chest and/or back?" I asked him curiously. "Or even in his head? It doesn't have to be big," I told him when he glanced at me. "I just want to be able to put Catnip in him. He's going to help keep the Evil Cat of Doom, Tora, away from me." Toyuchi let out a burst of laughter.

"_That's_ what you want to learn minor puppetry for?" She demanded, laughing. "To fight off that _cat_?" I glared at her angrily, and jabbed a finger at her.

"That cat," I said heatedly, "has managed to sneak past ANBU-level traps and security, to attack me _while I sleep_. I sure as fuck want a way to distract it when it comes my way, and a small, yummy smelling puppet would sure as hell help me with that!" She shook her head, snickering, and I huffed and turned back to Kankuro when the sound of a drill caught my attention. He had a tiny, little buzz-saw, and was cutting a compartment into the puppets back. When he was done, he flipped it over, and did the same for the front, and then the "face" of the puppet (where I'd painted a green smiley-face). I watched in silent curiosity as he pulled a pair of magnifying-glasses out of his pouch, and perched them on his nose in silence, before getting to work on the compartments, making hinges and locks and tiny shelves inside.

He truly was a great craftsmen when it came to puppets…

"Done," he said, and handed me my puppet. I beamed at him, and used a finger to pet its tiny head. "I'll show you how to use your Chakra to make him move, and to open each compartment later, alright? First, you need to name him, and lock him to you by Chakra and blood, so others can't take him from you," he said, and explained the process. Soon, I was making a symbol on the small puppets chest with my bloody finger and pushing my Chakra gently into it, making it flash, and disappear.

"There you go, now I and other puppet users can't take him from you," Kankuro said, looking rather pleased with his role as teacher. I was pleased to have him; he was fascinating.

"Does he have to wear make-up, too?" Kyoko called from across the room, and Kankuro and I both glared at her.

"It's not make-up, it's war-paint!" We both declared, and then high-five'd with a grin.

"I hope we don't have to fight each other," I told him sincerely. "But I'd rather fight you then Gaara. I'd have to let Juu out to deal with him, and, well, he's a willy-nilly killer and such. He'd probably turn on the crowd and egg Gaara on."

"Whose Juu?" Rin asked. "You've referred to him before." I smiled warmly at her.

"My evil alter ego," I said simply. "I have a split personality that is extremely violent and blood thirsty, and I try to avoid all contact between him and the outside world. He guards my mind from attack, and I let him into my battles every once in a while. It works out alright." Rin looked at me thoughtfully.

"That… Explains a few things," she said, thoughtful, and returned to her book. Toyuchi shrugged.

"As long as he doesn't eat my liver when I'm sleeping, I'm cool with that." I smiled, and turned calm, easy eyes on Kankuro, who stared at me in disbelief.

"Juu doesn't like strangers too much," I said simply, quietly. "He's very territorial. He might take too many people trying to know him as a threat." Understanding lit the Suna-nins' eyes, and he nodded.

"You need to name your puppet," he said; I blinked.

"Gizmo," I said automatically, thinking of the movie _Gremlins_, which I'd watched before I'd met Juu. Kankuro arched an eyebrow, but shrugged.

"Whatever you like, he's _your_ puppet," he said, and pulled a package from within his shirt out, setting it on the table. He unwrapped it, exposing the pieces to another puppet. "This is Whisper," he introduced and, after a few seconds assembling the puppet, sat him up with a flick of his fingers. I eyed it with frank admiration.

It was about two feet tall, half a foot taller then Gizmo, with white-and-brown painted skin, and a round white race. Its mouth was that of a nutcracker, with large, blue googley eyes, and spiky white sack clothe as hair, starched and sewn into shape with the use of senbon as spines. It chattered its teeth at me, waved, and danced around, following the minutest motions of Kankuro's fingers. It even paused, bent over Gizmo, and proceeded to poke him with one of its jointed fingers. I laughed, grinning, and Kankuro grinned back, before moving his puppet back towards him and settling it down into a lying position.

Compared to Whisper, Gizmo was lacking. He was a foot-and-a-half tall, and looked like on of those model-figures art students got when they needed to practice human bodies, only with a rounder head that looked too big. His hands had flexible wrists, but were otherwise mitten-like, and that was it. He had visible joints and everything, and I winced slightly, eying him.

"I feel like he's naked," I said honestly; Kankuro grinned.

"You can make him a cloak or something when I finish giving you the basics," he said; I nodded.

"And a hat," I muttered, stroking his golf-ball sized head on his Barbie-thin body. Poor Gizmo got put together wrong. No wonder I got him so cheap… And got that weird look until the lady selling him saw my headband (which didn't explain her look of abrupt understanding, but _still_…)

"Alright, pay attention now," he said, sliding into lecture more, but said no more, as there were listening ears. Instead, he pointedly showed some Chakra, connected to his middle finger, and made a long, hair-thin line to Whisper's head. It nodded up and down when he twitched it. "You try," he said, and I obeyed. Condensing my Chakra into my hand, I carefully pulled a tiny thread from my middle finger, ignoring the tingly, painful feeling that began there, and connected it to Gizmo's head. I had to move my finger a lot harder and more then Kankuro did, but his head still moved. I pulled the Chakra back, sighing with a wince. Blood had pooled beneath my nail and dripped out onto the table. I used my left hand and healed it, and accepted a napkin from Kankuro to wipe up the blood that had driped down, and slid it into my pocket so no one would have it (you can get a lot of information off of someone's blood, you know. Just look at what the Muggles can do with it!).

"Its best if you train and practice with one finger, and so one hand, with one limb of your puppet at a timeat a time," Kankuro told me, smiling sympathetically. "The high concentration of Chakra, pulled through such a small pore at such a high degree, bursts the blood vessels over the Chakra point in your fingertips, until you build up enough scar tissue that it doesn't even hurt anymore. I started my training at four years old," he said, smiling proudly, though painfully, at the memory. "Don't worry, though," He said, clapping me on the shoulder before he started taking Whisper apart and putting him away, after he'd showed me which fingers attached to which limbs. "If you survive the Exam, you'll have plenty of time to practice between and on missions!" I agreed. "Now, about the compartments," he added, and tapped each area significantly. "Each area will need the Chakra you send there manipulated specifically toward the latches. It's difficult even for me to do sometimes, unless it's a simple mechanism, like this is. You tap it three times with Chakra, without losing control of your puppet. Try it without holding onto any of Gizmo's limbs." I used my left hand, this time, and slowly worked a Chakra thread over to tap the head-compartment three times. With a soft _snick_, it opened, exposing the hollow insides (Kankuro had only put shelves in the tinier chest- and back-compartments). I once again healed my finger, then pulled out the storage scroll and got out the Catnip doll after warning Toyuchi (who covered her mouth and nose with the same mask we used when on kitty-litter duty, funnily enough). Carefully, I used a kunai to cut open its bulging belly, and stuffed some (not a lot, just enough to make a small nest) inside of Gizmo's head. That done, I sewed the Catnip plushy back up, and stored it away.

"Toyuchi, I need your nose to test Gizmo's potency," I told her, and she reluctantly lowered her mask, scenting the air. Her pupils widened but she didn't try to pounce.

"He smells _really_ interesting, but not as nummy as the plushy does," she told me, covering her mouth and nose again. "What the hell kind of Catnip do you _use_?" I grinned slyly.

"Extra-special kind bought straight from the Yamanaka's by Neesan," I told her simply; she groaned, and, chuckling, I spent another hour making my left hand's middle finger bleed in order to make Gizmo nod. Each time, less and less blood seeped from under my nail, though it still turned black and it _still_ hurt like I just slammed a hammer on it.

"You're making great progress," Kankuro said, looking pleased as well as startled, and I hummed, concentrating. I made Gizmo turn his head and nod at the puppeteer, who grinned at me like a proud parent, making me blush slightly and grin sheepishly back when I dropped the Chakra and, once again, healed my finger.

"Hai," I agreed easily, using the same napkin as before to wipe blood from the table, though I just licked it off of my finger. There are some things you just can't _help_ but learn from Anko when she raises you from infant to ten-year-old, and a mild blood-fetish is one of them.

"You have three more days to work on it, though," Kankuro was reminding me, and I grinned.

"Hai," I said again, and got back to work.

"It's no use trying to get a conversation out of him now," Rin said to the room at large, starting on a new book, one of my old ones dealing in Chakra coils. "Once he has his mind set on something, he focuses on that in totality. He'll be back to his old self once he masters, or as close to it as he can, what he aims to achieve." Toyuchi nodded.

"I give it two days," she said, eyes bright with challenge. "For him to master one entire hand. I'll bet a hundred ryo." Kisho bet I could only master three fingers in that time. They shook hands

"I bet five hundred ryo he masters both hands in two days," Gaara spoke up, voice as blank and cool as a mirror. Everyone stared at him, but me. I smiled slightly, lifted my head, and nodded at him.

"I'll take that challenge," I said to him. "If I don't, I'll pay you five hundred ryo. If I do, you pay me. Alright?" He inclined his head, and I focused on Gizmo with an intensity that (I'm told) scared my teammates.

I would beat Gaara's bet, because with five hundred ryo, I could by a king-sized chocolate bar from the more expensive (and so, better made) side of the general store.

It was on.

**0.7**

The next day, the Mini-Gai showed up, with a bun-haired weapons specialist and a male Hyuuga. I'd mastered my entire left hand and two fingers from my right, working the whole night through, and was halfway to exhausted. About three hours after them, those three Oto-nin arrived, one with sore, dislocated arms. Before midnight, Shino-kun's Team made it. I'd mastered another finger.

The next day, at noon, I accepted my five hundred ryo after proving my mastery of all five fingers, and both Toyuchi and Kisho had to pay Gaara five hundred. It earned me a small, companionable smirk from my fellow Jinchuuriki, but that was there and gone again in a flash. But at least it was there.

I didn't begrudge him his winnings, though. He'd given me something to distract me for the days we were trapped inside the tower, waiting for the five-days to be up. Let him keep his one thousand ryo.

Ino's Team arrived shortly before midnight, and, still, there was no sign of Naruto-nii.

**0.8**

"Sasuke-kun!" Ino greeted with joy, leaping up from her seat to run towards Duckbutt, whose Team arrived after that of the Shinobi Skill Card Kid from before (Kabuto, was his name, I believe). I let out a sigh of relief, and smiled warmly over at Naruto when I saw him. He grinned at me, but I could see the exhaustion lurking in his eyes. Anko appeared from a back room before the blond could even sit down, and I caught the chocolate bar she threw my way, eagerly digging into it.

"Good puppy," she told me, smirking, though there was something dark and tired in her eyes. Something pained, and I would have gone over and hugged her, but she was yelling at us all to follow her, and we obeyed. Soon, we were back in the main room of the Tower, the large, empty, echoing space about us, and in front of us stood our Jounin instructors, Iruka-sensei, the Hokage, Anko, and three extra Leaf-nin who I didn't know, one of which looked tired and vaguely sickly, who would cough every so often.

"Now, Lord Hokage himself will explain about the Third Exam," Anko told us, looking serious and stressed. Maybe the Second Exam did something, or something happened to her? "Listen up and take every word he says to heart!" Then again, she could just be worried we'd disrespect the Hokage. She was big on respecting him, ever since he gave me to her. It was interesting, but also tiring. "They're all yours, my Lord," she said.

"Very well," he commented, and stared out at us, smoking his pipe. "The third Examination is about to commence… But, before I go into the specifics on how it will be conducted, let me make one thing perfectly clear! It pertains to the underlying purpose of the Exam," he said, and we twenty-four kids all looked up at him in mild confusion. "Why do you suppose an Examination of this nature is being jointly conducted by all of the nations in our mutual alliance?" he asked us; only Rin and Sakura seemed to know anything about it, and Rin looked much more confident. "_'To promote friendship among allied nations and raise the level of standards in the art of shinobi.'_ Be very clear about what those fine-sounding phrases mean! This series of so-called Examinations is, in fact, a war-in-miniature between all of our allied lands." I blinked, shocked, but then thought about it.

"You know," I murmured quietly. "That makes perfect sense."

"If you were to study our recent history, and consult a map, it would swiftly become apparent that our alliance is, in fact, a temporary and mutually beneficial agreement between a group of geographically contiguous lands." Gah. Big words… I'd ask Rin later. "Whose previous existence was one of continual strife… Constantly jockeying against one another openly for power and the control of resources that were perpetually depleted almost to exhaustion in the struggle... Until a better way was devised. The way of the Chunin Examination!"

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" Naruto cried, unable to take any more, it appeared (I wondered if he had queues, where he _knew_ he had to react, or people would look at him funny… Hmm…) "I thought the point was to select Chunin!" Kakashi-sensei looked weary at his outburst, but said nothing; the Hokage frowned slightly, seriously.

"Make no mistake," he told my friend. "When this Exam is done, it will have had the _side effect_ of winnowing out applicants unfit to ascend to the level of Chunin. But, even more importantly, it serves as an arena wherein, for the honor of their respective homelands, young shinobi may fight…to the _death_, if need be!"

"Honor of their lands?" Ino asked; the Hokage nodded sagely.

"This Third Examination will be conducted under the watchful eyes of a number of distinguished guests, including rulers of nobility of the various lands you all aspire to serve. Among their number will be those who rule over each country's own Hidden shinobi Village. They will be watching you." Creepers… "If any one nation's applicants demonstrate outstanding skill and superiority, the noblemen from every land will be quick to commission work from those trained in that superior Nation. Conversely, if a particular country's applicants are shown to be incompetent, or feeble, commissions to agents of that country will dwindle. And when one land is strong in battle, and the village coffers overflow with the fruits of the many outside commissions this begets, then that village may say to its neighbors _'beware, for we possess prowess and riches and influence of political power'_!"

"So?" Kiba cried, fists clenched on either side of his small dog. "Why is that necessary to risk our lives and fight?" The Hokage stared at him with brooding calmness.

"The strength of a country is derived from the strength of its Village, and the strength of its Village is derived from the strength of the Shinobi who live there," he told us calmly, gnawing on his pipe (maybe he had an oral-fixation too?). "And the greatest strength of those shinobi…only emerges in the midst of a life-or-death battle!" I nodded slowly, meeting, my sister's eyes. She smiled thinly at me, pained, and I knew it wasn't from the thought of the fight I'd face, but from something physical. _'Who hurt you, Neesan?'_

"These Exams provide a public arena for which each country can show off and boast the strength of its warriors. And hence, the strength of the country itself! This test has meaning and great consequence. As you struggle for the sake of your very lives and your people, you help to fulfill the dream that was envisioned by our ancestors." I still want his hat…

"But…" Bun-Girl on Mini-Gai's Team called. "You've always emphasized the concept of 'friendship'…why…?"

"Though my meaning is subtle, I chose my words with care," The Hokage answered her. "To preserve the balance of power at the risk of lives, is the essence of friendship in the world of shinobi. Let me reiterate before the Third Exam begins," he told us stunned and confused children, who'd just had our views torn and twisted… Well, _most_ of us. "You are taking no ordinary test!"

De-Ja-Vu of my Hogwarts Days all over again…

"You risk not only your own futures and _your_ dreams, but the _dignity_ and _prestige_ of your Village as well." Silence.

"Now I get it," Naruto said, grinning.

"Whatever," Gaara said. "Could you wrap up the philosophical talk and get down to the life-and-death stuff any time soon?" I sweat dropped.

"It's life-_or_-death stuff, Gaara," I sighed; he looked at me.

"For you, maybe," he replied; and I was tempted to say '_you're_ the mortal one, you should talk!' but I didn't.

"Hmph!" The Hokage said, popping the pipe from his mouth. "So, you insist I explain the Third Exam?" We nodded, and stared up at him expectantly. "Well, the truth is…" Sickly Ninja knelt suddenly, and I was worried he might be having a fit of some sort, before he spoke.

"Forgive my interrupting, Lord Hokage," he said, "but, if you don't mind handing the rest of the proceedings over to me, Gekko Hayate, Proctor of the Third Exam." Heh, his last name is Gecko… With two K's, though

"…Go ahead," the Hokage said. He stood and turned to us with a small exhale that sounded like 'Okay!'

"Good to meet you, everyone…I'm Hayate." He looked like he would drop dead or unconscious right there and then, and I wanted nothing more then to go up and order him to bed, but I didn't. "Uh, before we start the Exam, I must ask you all to do something for me…" If it was get him to a hospital, I would gladly do it. "Um, you see, there are some preliminaries to the Exam Proper, and whether you proceed to the main Exam is contingent on how well you manage _those_."

"Preliminaries?" Pepto asked, though she wasn't the only one. Shikamaru was very frustrated with all the extra work, because he yelled it.

"Like what?" He cried afterward.

"Hayate-sensei, I don't understand what you mean by preliminaries," Pepto continued. "Why can't all of the remaining applicants just proceed directly to the next exam?" Hayate looked at us, and his eyes were cool and direct.

"Well, I don't say that the first two Exams weren't demanding enough, but the truth is…

"We still have too many applicants."

**0.9**

"Under the traditional rules of the Exam, we have to have a preliminary test to reduce the number of applicants who'll proceed to the Third Exam. As the Lord Hokage mentioned," Hayate continued, ignoring Pepto's stuttered 'but', "a number of honored guests will be observing you during the Third Exam, so we must make the Exam intense, tight, and fast-moving." I nodded slightly. It was the Tri-Wizard Tournament all over again. We have to make our 'schools' Champion look flashy and awesome, so we get more people applying there next year. Got it.

"Hmm, so anyway, now that you know, anyone who doesn't feel up to the challenge, either physically or mentally, can walk away. Just take one step forward…

"Because the preliminaries start, right now."

**1.0**

"_Now_?" Kiba cried; I blinked, started. And almost immediately afterward…

"Well, I'm outta here," came from Kabuto.

"What!" Naruto cried, staring at him in disbelief. "K-Kabuto?" The older applicant looked over at my friend, and gave him a serious look. Before he could say anything, Hayate was speaking.

"Uh, in case I forgot to mention it, from here on in, you fight as individuals, not as members of Teams. So, you can make the decision that's right for you without worrying about anyone else. So, anyone else want out? Show of hands…"

"Hey Kabuto!" Naruto cried. "What's up with quitting?"

"Naruto, I'm sorry," Kabuto told him, "but those guys we fought beat the crap out of me. And ever since my scuffle with those Oto-nin prior to the Exam, I've been totally deaf in my left ear." I narrowed my eyes, because I'd _healed_ that and it _damn well_ shouldn't have been deaf… Which meant he was lying about it for some reason. "Now they're saying this could be a fight to the death, and I just don't think I'm up to that!" After a few minutes of murmuring with his teammates, he walked away, waving to Naruto's Team as he did.

"So, uh, looks like no one else is bailing out," Hayate said, and Pepto began to furiously whisper with Duckbutt, who was clutching at what I assumed was a wound on his neck. Kin stepped forward finally, and raised a hand. After he left, Hayate waited for more. But, after a few more minutes, he put the clipboard away, and now one else stepped forward to leave.

"Ah, well then, we'll now begin the preliminaries, which will consist of individual combat matches, as though this were part of a tournament. As there are a total of twenty-two combatants remaining, we will hold a total of eleven bouts. Um, and the victors of those bouts will advance to the Third Exam." He nodded slightly to himself. "This is no-holds-barred combat. Each pair of combatants will fight until one is dead or unconscious…or admits defeat. As soon as you sense that your opponent is overpowering you, immediately concede you loss… If you value your life." He looked at us all.

"Uh, since we don't want a total bloodbath on our hands, there may be cases where we ascertain that there is an undisputed winner and step in to end the match. But don't count on that. From here on out the key to your fate, is held in…" A wall lifted up, exposing a… "Um, this electronic score board." What the fuck? Where did _that_ come from? "At the start of every round, we will display the names of the two combatants competing in that match. So, um, not to hurry you all to the slaughter, but let's begin. We'll now announce the first two names." We all turned our eyes anxiously or eagerly to the large score board, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for Naruto's Team, having just come from the forest and having no time to rest, even. Two names appeared.

_Uchiha Sasuke_

_VS_

_Akado Yoroi_

Well, _this_ was going to be interesting…

"Akado Yoroi, Uchiha Sasuke, you two have been selected to compete in the first bout. Any objections?" Asked Hayate; Duckbutt and Yoroi glared at one another

"None," Yoroi intoned.

"I'm good," Duckbutt agreed. And Hayate motioned the rest of us out of the center of the room, up onto the small, fenced balconies so that we could watch our fellow Genin fight. I settled down in between Toyuchi and Rin, and Tekuno-sensei came to lean against the fence beside us, his eyes serious and calm.

Like I said, _this_ was going to be _interesting_.

"Uh, it's time for the first round to commence, alright?" Hayate was saying. All right… Please begin!"

**1.1**

From my place in the balcony, I watched the fight unfold. My eyes narrowed, and so did Rin's. Toyuchi looked from the fight to us, confused.

"What?" she finally asked, squirming in place. "What is it?"

"Yoroi is feeding on Duckbutt's Chakra," I said. "He'll have to come up with a way that doesn't use Chakra, avoid skin-to-skin contact, and _still_ pull a win out of his ass to beat this guy," I told her; Rin nodded in agreement.

"Uchiha Sasuke," Gaara said from some feet away. "This is all he can do?" Naruto gritted his teeth, and glared down into the field.

"How can you still call yourself Uchiha Sasuke?" He shouted down at his teammate, and I smiled faintly when Duckbutt stared up at him. "You're a disgrace to yourself! Aren't you embarrassed to have everyone see you as a big loser?" Sasuke stared at him, with Mini-Gai on one side, Pepto on the other, and his eyes widened. Yoroi moved to attack… And was kicked into the air. Duckbutt rose up with him. As he began his attack, though, strange symbols began to grow from his neck, up, onto his face, and I clenched my hands on the banister, the blood draining from my face. I recognized those marks from Anko's own neck, sealed as they were…

FLASHBACK~

"_This?" She asked, touching the triple tomoe on the back of where her left shoulder met her neck. Anko smiled bitterly down at my five-year-old self. "It's a curse-mark," she told me, and I stared at her silently, reminded of my lightning-bolt scar. "Given to me by a man I worshiped as a mentor, and man named–" _

_~END FLASHBACK_

"Orochimaru," I murmured under my breath, and my eyes sought out my sister as Duckbutt fought off his shiny, new curse-mark, and slammed Yoroi into the ground. She looked pale, and pained, but shocked as well, and I noticed a bandage peaking out from the left side of the back of her jacket, where her own mark was being covered. _'So now I know who hurt you during the Second Exam, sister,'_ I thought darkly, clenched fists sitting on the banister as I stared at her, and Duckbutt was declared the winner, and soon escorted out with Kakashi-sensei. Rin set a gentle hand on my clenched left fist, and Toyuchi on my right, and I shook my head and relaxed my hands, smiling at them warmly.

"Well then right! Let's get the next match going!" Hayate said, and the next names that appeared on the board were…

_Mitarashi Midori_

_VS_

_Nekotayu Toyuchi_

"Oops," I said, and grinned at her sheepishly. She rolled her eyes, and we both jumped into the field.

Let's get ready to rumble…

**A/N:** All done! Everyone expected me to put in this humongo scene where Midori faced off with Orochimaru. But that's a Naruto thing! NARUTO faces off with Orochimaru, and this is a MIDORI thing, where he meets My Original Kumo Team and learns a new Jutsu (and tricks my Kiri Team as well). Midori doesn't follow Naruto around like a lost puppy, he has his own fate and enemies to face with!

Though I DID put something in there with his chocolate, though not the way people seemed to want… Maybe later.

_**R&R!**_


End file.
